Dina Mezza, JD

Dina Mezza, JD, MSW is the Community Coordinator for Circuit 18’s Early Childhood Court. She is passionate about helping children and families, which is evident in the work she has chosen to do throughout her career. In December of 2021, Dina started as the first ECC coordinator in Circuit 18 working to implement the ECC program in Brevard County, Fla. Her focus has been on developing collaborative partnerships with stakeholders, expanding and strengthening community resources, and educating dependency-involved families about the benefits of ECC program participation. Dina facilitates family team meetings with multidisciplinary professionals including parents, case managers, infant toddler developmental specialists, child parent psychotherapists, attorneys, and other important adults in the children’s lives. During these meetings, she maintains the focus on children’s overall needs and provides a forum for parents to voice their needs and wants for their children and themselves, discussing progress towards reunification and permanency planning. Dina also prepares the family team meeting reports highlighting children’s physical and mental wellbeing and documenting parent status with case plan tasks and follow up actions of team members to support timely permanency. Dina brings extensive educational and professional work experience to the ECC program. She has worked with children and parents in a variety of roles including Attorney and Guardian ad Litem for Minor Children, Family Law Practitioner, and Child Protective Investigator. Dina is a graduate of Quinnipiac University School of Law and the School of Social Work at the University of Connecticut. When working for the Connecticut court system, she held the position of Family Services Counselor working with children involved in custody disputes and parents overcoming domestic violence, mental health, and substance use disorders. Dina continues to support parents in making behavior changes to safely and lovingly care for their children while keeping children’s wellbeing at the forefront of every conversation.