Russha Knauer is the Director of the MINDSOURCE Brain Injury Network, the State of Colorado’s lead state agency on brain injury. Housed within the Colorado Department of Human Services, MINDSOURCE serves several functions with the overall aim of improving the care for people living with brain injuries. Russha came into this work after serving for over 20 years in various roles across the juvenile justice and criminal legal systems. This work gradually highlighted how unidentified brain injuries can interfere in successful behavior change and community transition for people involved in the criminal legal system. Eventually, the paths of Russha’s past and current careers began to converge. As an analyst within the Division of Probation Services in the Colorado State Court Administrator’s Office, Russha joined a cross-agency team of professionals to study the prevalence of brain injuries across the spectrum of juvenile justice and criminal legal system settings. This team identified and created tools effective for identifying lifetime history of brain injury and current symptoms, simple compensatory strategies, and ongoing group support. This set of tools is now known as the Online Brain Injury Screening & Support System (OBISSS) and Colorado Brain Injury Model. The latter model is used in more than 14 states and internationally.

In addition to Russha’s experience with brain injury and the criminal legal system, she has an extensive background working with and using implementation science to reinforce change in practice and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT).