Mark Robinson

Mark W. Robinson is a retired Youth Development Specialist who dedicated his career to providing services to youth and families from all socio-economic backgrounds, but specifically inner-city youth of color.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Alabama A&M University and a Master’s of Arts Degree in Guidance and Counseling from Bowling Green State University.  After college, he started as an elementary school teacher and then went into the substance abuse field, where he worked for over 25 years with both youth and adults. 

He was a co-founder of a culturally specific outpatient chemical dependency treatment center for inner-city youth in East Cleveland, Ohio.  He served as Executive Director of this agency, East Cleveland Straight Talk, for 16 years.  In the 1990’s he was certified as a violence prevention specialist and begin the development and implementation of gang prevention/intervention programs for local first-ring suburbs in the Cleveland Ohio community.  He also taught part-time at Cuyahoga Community College in the health department for 20 years+.  He also worked part-time for a number of years as the manager of a monthly driver intervention program in Wooster, Ohio.  For 6 years Mark served as Board Member for the Ohio Chemical Dependency Credentialing Board and was the President of said board for 3 of those years.

Mark also was the Executive Director of Cleveland MOTTEP (minority organ tissue transplant education program) for 5 years prior to moving to Washington D.C. In D.C. he served as the Director of Community Wellness for The Latin American Youth Center and was responsible for all prevention programs, including homelessness, gang prevention, pregnancy prevention, and drug and alcohol prevention. 

In 2014 he relocated to Los Angeles California and worked as a Fatherhood Specialist for Project Fatherhood of Children’s Institute Incorporated.  In 2019 he retired from there and begin his life as a retiree, however, he continues to work with youth by volunteering in a gang prevention program in Los Angeles and for an intergenerational program where youth and older adults work to close the generational gap with conversation and engagement.  In his retirement, he also works part-time as a background actor with Central Casting LA and has become an aspiring author and written his first book, a memoir, titled “Those Who made us, Us” which will be released this spring through Amazon.