Tiarra Dearbone Bryant is Deputy Director of PDA.
Tiarra Dearbone Bryant serves as Deputy Director at PDA where she provides executive level support to the LEAD Support Bureau, which provides technical assistance and strategic guidance to jurisdictions across the nation implementing and operating Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion/Let Everyone Advance with Dignity (LEAD). Tiarra also focuses on hiring, retention and development of staff with lived experience, both internally and as a national practice. Before joining the Bureau, Tiarra served as a Project Manager for LEAD in Burien and Seattle and then as Seattle/King County LEAD Program Director, leading efforts to expand and innovate programming to address unprecedented conditions in communities related to public safety, disorder, homelessness, and quality of life. Tiarra focuses on collective impact to achieve community safety and health, and uses evidence based practices to reduce reliance on traditional enforcement and incarceration.
As a member of the Klamath Tribes of Oregon and a person with deep understanding of the impacts of intergenerational trauma, mental illness, and incarceration, Tiarra focuses on advancing racial and social justice in historically excluded communities, including advocating for post-prison education. She co-chairs the advisory council for the Husky Post-Prison Pathways (HP3) project at the University of Washington-Tacoma and sits on the HP3 steering committee. Tiarra is a member and local community leader for the national Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network (FICGN). She served for two years as a facilitator of addiction recovery groups as a volunteer with SMART Recovery. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Washington-Tacoma in 2019 as a first generation college student.