WPA’s Internal Newsletter A note from Georgia Dear Staff,
Winter 2015 Welcome New Staff Brooklyn Community Office:
I am so excited to introduce our first internal newsletter. Each season, the Development and External Affairs team will publish a new edition with updates and resources that are important to share throughout the agency. In addition to greater awareness of changes throughout WPA, I hope it will also promote a stronger sense of community among staff despite working across three locations and multiple facilities. Please consider how you may wish to contribute to this newsletter. I encourage you to share your own updates, ideas, photos, client success stories, and more. If you have an idea or contribution, please send it to Diana McHugh, Manager of Creative Strategy, at dmchugh@wpaonline.org. You may also call her at extension 7753. Thank you for all you do for WPA. I look forward to celebrating our successes together in this new way. Remember that you can also view this newsletter and other staff-only resources at www.wpaonline.org/content/internal.
• Jennifer Singleton, Managing Director of Programs: responsible for overall direction of WPA’s client services • Nickehelia Scott, Case Manager: JusticeHome • Renee Gambol, Assessment & Treatment Readiness Specialist: Family Treatment & Rehabilitation Program
Sincerely,
Hopper Home:
2015 Marks WPA’s 170th Anniversary
Georgia Lerner This year marks WPA’s 170th anniversary! Executive Director In 1845, we became the nation’s first organization dedicated solely to working with criminal justice-involved women and, since then, we have launched many groundbreaking firsts in programming and policy. For nearly two centuries, we have lived up to the standard of being first. Throughout 2015 we will celebrate our historic past and plan for the future with special events, educational and awareness activities, volunteer opportunities, and much, much more. If you don’t already, now is a great time to follow WPA on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can follow all of our 170th anniversary activities at #WPAFIRST.
Huntington House: • Alaina Hohnarth, Manager of Government Grants and Policy: responsible for government funding applications and WPA’s responses to criminal justice policy issues • Amy Barnett, Managing Director of Human Resources and Staff Development • Cheryl Paley and Ivy Woolf-Turk, Project Directors of the Blackbird Project at WPA
• Shawnee Rice, Manager of Volunteer Services: responsible for coordinating individual and non-corporate group volunteer projects for all sites • Steven Urrea, Residential Aide • Tai Montoya, Director of Human Resources • Tynisha Poole, Housing Case Manager • Alexandra Villano’s position has been expanded to include program development, quality monitoring, and government contracts. Her new title is Managing Director of Development and External Relations. • Stephanie Odom’s new title, Managing Director of Financial Services and Administration, reflects the addition of facilities and information technology oversight to her portfolio of management responsibilities.
Women’s Prison Association | 110 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10003 Phone: 646.292.7742 | Fax: 646.292.7763 | Email: info@wpaonline.org
Volunteerism at WPA
The WPA Vision
Shawnee Rice, Manager of Volunteer Services, will be reaching out to program staff over the next several weeks to get feedback about ways in which programs could benefit from volunteer services. If you are contacted by someone who is interested in volunteering for WPA, please refer them to Shawnee. Please also contact Shawnee if you have specific volunteer needs within your program.
The Women’s Prison Association envisions a community where our reliance on incarceration as the default response to crime has been replaced by constructive, community-driven and -enhancing responses. Critical to our vision of a world with fewer jails and prisons is the belief that all human beings have the capacity for change and that every individual can be accountable for her actions and the results. Believing that no person should be defined solely by her bad acts, we exist to support women at any stage of criminal Contact Shawnee: srice@wpaonline.org, ext. 7755 justice involvement so that they can imagine and realize Explore: www.wpaonline.org/about/volunteer law-abiding, self-directed and satisfying lives in the community. We strive to create an environment where women New Program Spotlight feel supported and confident enough to take the chance The of trying new ways of acting in response to situations Blackbird and feelings. In the absence of expectation and ideas, Project at women need help imagining that they can participate WPA is as community-member, employees or scholars. And, designed to although they have been punished in jails, prisons and integrate by family and community, few have had the experience life coaching and arts-based intervention to promote of taking responsibility for their actions and the ensuing physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being results. WPA recognizes that every step of a woman’s for women who are currently involved in the criminal journey, including her crimes, is critical to her arrival at justice system, re-entering the community following the present, and that she is able to chart her future on a incarceration, or living in one of WPA’s residences. The different path. program complements existing services at WPA that Perhaps most critical to the realization of our vision address core survival and stabilization needs. is every staff member’s belief in the right and capacity of every person to define a personal vision and take The Blackbird Project is designed to: steps to bring about its existence. Inherent in this belief is the acknowledgment that each person’s vision is of • Build a supportive, safe, and nurturing community of different scale, can and should change, and that every women step that fails to lead to its realization can reveal valuable • Introduce and utilize a wide range of arts-based and information. life coaching techniques as tools for transformation Realization of our vision will be a reflection of our • Create an engaging environment that supports clients’ success in imagining, believing, and beginning to women in aligning their values and needs, building live law-abiding lives that are guided by their own goals confidence, and finding purpose and desires. Realization of our vision will be apparent • Provide valuable life tools for setting goals and when incarceration is a rare response to crime, and when handling challenges on an ongoing basis responses to crime are community-based plans that include repair of damage; demonstration of cooperative, Contact: Cheryl Paley, cpaley@wpaonline.org, ext. 7712 lawful and pro-social behaviors; improved/adequate -or- Ivy Woolf-Turk, iwoolfturk@wpaonline.org, ext. 7715 stability of family and housing; and participation in Explore: www.wpaonline.org/services/blackbird workforce or another legal source of income.
Volunteerism at WPA There is a small supply of new, work-appropriate clothing in sizes medium and large at Hopper Home. This clothing was gifted by a donor who is interested in buying more clothing for clients to meet their specific needs. If you have a client who needs clothes, please contact Jackie Hockersmith at jhockersmith@wpaonline.org or ext. 7742.
Upcoming Events: March: Women’s Advocacy Project March 27: JusticeHome Graduation April 29: Cocktails for a Cause View the WPA Agency Calendar at www.wpaonline.org/content/internal