CalFAS Mission | The CalFAS Board |  Contact

Tom Wentz, Ph.D./C.D.C.

Tom Wentz earned his Ph.D. in teacher education and child study (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/Children of Alcoholics) in 1995, from the University of North Dakota. He is an educator, alcohol and drug counselor, FAS consultant, has published and presented his research at the regional and national levels in the areas of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and adolescent alcohol and other drug use.

From 1992 to 1997, Dr. Wentz developed and taught a series of three in-service courses for teachers on helping children and adolescents with FAS, Children of Alcoholics, and teaching for prevention of alcohol and other drug abuse. He was a member of the North Dakota Governor's Task Force on FAS as the representative for higher education where he helped draft legislation on FAS and provided legislative testimony regarding the needs for public school identification and services for students with FAS.  Upon graduation, Dr. Wentz was named Director of the North Dakota FAS School Screening Project, North Dakota FAS Center, University of North Dakota Medical School. As the project director, he developed FAS screening training programs and taught special educators, social workers, psychologists, and nurses to screen for FAS.  Dr. Wentz personally organized, trained, and conducted in excess of 2500 FAS screenings for elementary and middle school students across the State of North Dakota.  As a result of the success of the state-wide screening project Dr. Larry Burd, FAS Center Director, Dr. Wentz, and others authored an article published in the Journal of Addiction Biology (1999), and announced the first, mass and rapid screening instrument for FAS.   

In 1996, Dr. Wentz founded the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Foundation of North Dakota. Also that year, Dr. Wentz presented his dissertation results of a national study on the educational status of students with FAS at the Conference on FAS and Secondary Disabilities, Seattle, WN.  Later the results were published as a chapter as  part of the conference proceedings by A. Streissguth and J. Kanter, editors, The Challenge of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome:  Overcoming Secondary Disabilities.   Dr. Wentz developed a 3 semester credit hour course for the University Affiliated Programs, University of South Dakota Medical School, and co-instructed with Dr. Burd an FAS train-the-trainers workshop for middle level managers of the State of South Dakota for the initiation and implementation of services for victims of FAS.   

In 1999, Dr. Wentz completed his drug and alcohol counselor training at Hazelden and was named an FAS presenter for Hazelden's speakers bureau.  He began a consulting firm shortly thereafter named, SAF Child.  He has served as an FAS consultant, chemical dependency program director/counselor for a therapeutic Native American middle school.  He has been a lecturer on FAS and Lead Counselor III at the Betty Ford Center's Professionals in Recovery Program.  Dr. Wentz is a member of the Interagency Coordinating Council on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institute of Health (NIH), and sits on the workgroups for juvenile justice and education.  Currently, he is an adjunct professor teaching psychology courses at the College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA.  In addition, Dr Wentz and SAF Child offer services which include FAS/ARND screening, screening training, train-the-trainer workshops, conduct alcohol/drug and maternal risk assessments, including treatment; furthermore, services related to assisting public and private agencies to plan and implement programs for children and adolescents suspected of and/or diagnosed with FASD including the design and implementation of prevalence studies are available through SAF Child.