As senior vice president and chief clinical/medical officer, Yolanda Graham, M.D., FAPA, DFAACAP, is responsible for overseeing Devereux’s clinical strategies, treatment and outcomes. Specifically, she works to integrate the latest scientific and medical advancements with time-tested philosophies and compassionate family engagement to provide practical, effective and efficient care for the tens of thousands of children, adolescents and adults served by the organization every year.
Graham is board certified in general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry, and is an expert in the areas of: mental health, child advocacy, psychotropic medication management, behavioral management, childhood sexual exploitation and trauma, and the treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals. She joined Devereux in 2011 as the medical director of Devereux Georgia and, in 2016, was promoted to executive director of mental health services at Devereux. In 2018, she assumed her current position of senior vice president and chief clinical/medical officer. Graham, who is widely recognized across the nation as a leading expert in the treatment of sexually exploited children, developed and launched Devereux’s Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) program in 2012.
Prior to Devereux, Graham was the medical director at Youth Villages, Inner Harbour campus, in Douglasville, Georgia. She also served as a consultant for STRIVE, LLC, where she helped develop a clinical curriculum for commercially sexually exploited children. In addition, she worked as a clinical psychiatrist for organizations including Positive Impact, the Fulton County Metro Youth Detention Center and DeKalb County Community Service Board, among others. Graham lectures nationally, and has been published widely on issues related to child/adolescent behavioral health and the commercial exploitation of children. She is an adjunct assistant clinical professor at Morehouse School of Medicine.
Graham earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Doctor of Medicine from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She completed her residency and two fellowships at Emory University. Graham serves as president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s (AACAP) Regional Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Center on Child Trafficking, the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Leadership Council, Shared Hope International’s JuST Response Council, and the American Medical Association. She is the past president of the Georgia Council on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Georgia Psychiatric Physician’s Association. In 2018, Graham was named Psychiatrist of the Year by the Georgia Psychiatric Physician’s Association. She is recognized as a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, after earning Distinguished Fellow status in 2016. She was awarded Distinguished Fellow status with AACAP in 2023.