Ep. 17: Substance Use Recovery
Justice In Action
Guiding our clients toward recovery from substance use disorder The opioid epidemic has increased the demand for effective recovery services, and Justice Resource Institute’s Mary Chao is leading the organization’s training program for clinicians and other staff members to aid them in helping clients recover. Chao has been with JRI for nine years and works with the agency’s health, training and community-based services divisions, developing and coordinating substance use programming throughout the agency. She works closely with clients ages 12 to 24 and the JRI clinicians who help them...
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Ep. 16: Mental Heath Treatment for Clients with Developmental Differences
Justice In Action
Mental health clinicians are often reluctant to treat people who have intellectual and developmental differences (IDDs) for fear of doing something that could worsen rather than improve the client’s condition. In this episode of Justice in Action, two JRI clinicians, Dr. Jacquelyn Kraps, Metrowest Area Director and Clinical Director of Outpatient Services, and Bailey McCombs, Licensed Metal Health Counselor and Expressive Arts Therapist, talk about the rewards and challenges of working with children with a range of differences, from autism spectrum disorder to chromosomal differences,...
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Ep. 12: Permanent Connections are Vital for a Child’s Success
Justice In Action
We all need the people in our lives who know us and care about us, who celebrate our successes and comfort us in hard times. These are the people we call when we get a new job, lock our keys in the car or are facing a big decision.
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Ep. 11: Children's Advocacy Center
Justice In Action
CAC mental health clinicians Brittannie Moroz and Jillian Allen shared CDC data stating one in four girls and one in 13 boys under age 18 suffer trauma as a result of child sexual abuse. Those children are some of the approximately 75,000 Bristol County children age 16 and younger be-lieved to have suffered trauma from abuse, violence, addiction in their homes or other causes of childhood trauma.
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Ep. 10: Trauma-sensitive yoga w/ Jennifer Turner
Justice In Action
Trauma-sensitive yoga helps sufferers use their bodies to heal their spirits
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Ep. 9: The Wounded Healer
Justice In Action
Helping the healer when their work unearths old symptoms of trauma
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Ep. 8: Caroline Dunlap and the Harm Reduction Team
Justice In Action
It’s easy to find Caroline Dunlap and the Harm Reduction team at JRI’s Program RISE. They’re the ones wearing backpacks while meeting people in downtown Framingham, dispensing care and concern, along with vital supplies, to the region’s active drug users.
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Ep. 6: Equine Therapy with Meredith Norton
Justice In Action
For a child who has suffered long-term trauma from abuse or neglect, the world doesn’t feel like a safe place. And children who suffer from such complex trauma often face challenges when it comes to forming relationships with others, acting out with anger or suffering silently from depression.
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Ep. 4: Understanding the Spectrum of Sexualized Behavior in Clinical Work
Justice In Action
Most would agree that we live in a sex-saturated culture. So why do we find it so hard to talk about sex?
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Ep. 3: Protect children from sexual exploitation online
Justice In Action
Meredith Rapoza, Division Director of Permanency and Latency Services at JRI; Katryn Haley-Little, Clinical Director at My Life My Choice, a program of JRI helping children who have been exploited or who are deemed to be at risk; and Michelle Loranger, Executive Director of the Children's Advocacy Center of Bristol County, were guests on JRI’s weekly podcast series, “Justice in Action: Making a Difference as Leaders in Social Justice.”
info_outlineJRI is one of the largest social justice/human services agencies in New England, serving between 20,000 and 25,000 people each year in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Nearly 70 percent of those served by JRI (Justice Resource Institute) are children and families in need of shelter, full-time residential services, mental health care, help for HIV/AIDS, support for transgendered youth, and a myriad of other challenges.
Here is some of what JRI’s chief executive officer, Andy Pond, and chief operating officer, Mia DeMarco, said about trying to make a difference in the lives of some of our most vulnerable and traumatized citizens. You can listen to the entire podcast here.
The beginning
The Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965 encouraged states to begin
“deinstitutionalizing” mentally ill and developmentally delayed citizens from big state hospitals where tens of thousands of patients were kept locked away and, in many cases, neglected and mistreated.
“‘Warehouse’ would be a kind word [for the conditions inside those state hospitals]. Treatment wasn’t part of the process,” said Pond.
Enter JRI and many other non-profit agencies to pick up the slack. They ensured that there were treatment options for people being released to receive care in less restrictive, community-based settings.
The mission
CEO Pond describes the expanding JRI mission as attempting to reduce the “quotient of human misery….everyone has a right to the pursuit of happiness.”
That means helping foster families care for traumatized children who have often known abuse and neglect, moms and kids who have been forced from their homes, youths referred by the juvenile justice system and many others.
“If you can think of a social issue or need, we probably provide a service for that family or individual,” says DeMarco.
She was drawn to the field when she was assaulted by a teen-aged girl while working as a direct care counselor when she was in nursing school.
“I realized the pain so many people carry around that we just can’t see,” she said.
Pond added, “The history and mission have pretty much stayed the same since the beginning. What’s expanded is the scope….We don’t have a good elevator pitch because you can’t stay on an elevator that long.”
“Incredibly caring and compassionate”
People who work for human service agencies like JRI are people who care about others and about making a difference in the lives of their neighbors.
DeMarco said, “People who do this work are just incredibly caring and compassionate.”
For the past decade, JRI has been named one of the best employers in Massachusetts (and recently in Connecticut) because of the financial support it provides for employees’ education and opportunities for professional advancement. But it’s more than just financial support and a career boost. It is the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of other people, the chance for personal growth alongside others who share a passion for the JRI mission.
JRI invites people interested in exploring a career in social justice to visit the JRI website, https://jri.org.