NGI is excited to announce its Advisory Board members. The board represents a diverse group of individuals who share a commitment to girls and young women involved in the juvenile justice system. They will provide input and advise NGI staff on the strategic direction, policy issues, and strategies to improve outcomes for justice-involved girls and young women as well as provide a fresh and informed perspective on programmatic and policy issues.
Bianca Bailey – Shorma Bianca Bailey recently graduated from Howard University in Washington DC. She has held several internships at NAVSEA Department of Defense, ConocoPhillips and Carnegie Mellon University in the field of nanotechnology. Most importantly Ms. Bailey is a Girls Incorporated of Metropolitan Dallas Alum. She was selected as a White House Champion of Change for Women and Girls in Science.
Janet Carter – Janet joined Team-Up for Youth as Executive Director in 2008. Prior to Team-Up she served as Vice President of the Family Violence Prevention Fund, a national leader in the effort to end domestic violence. Janet has been recognized nationally for her leadership in building the field of violence against women and children and has received awards from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African-American Community, and the State Justice Institute.
Casey Corcoran, MEd – Casey is currently the Director of Futures Without Violence. He was previously the Director of the Start Strong Initiative at the Boston Public Health Commission. The Start Strong Initiative is a comprehensive community based intervention program designed to decrease teen dating violence and increase healthy relationships among adolescents. He received his M.A.T. from Trinity College and is a certified batterer/dating violence intervention counselor.
Barbara Guthrie, RN, PhD, FAAN - Barbara Guthrie is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Tenured Associate Professor at the Yale School of Nursing (YSN). Dr. Guthrie’s combined research and health activism has afforded her the privilege of working in concert with adolescent girls, from diverse ethnic, social class, and environmental contexts, to identify, to research, and to design ethnic and gender-responsive health promotion programs.
Suzanne Koepplinger, MA – Suzanne has been the Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center since 2003. She has a background in international project development and management, communications, domestic violence advocacy, and fundraising. Suzanne is of Canadian Mohawk and European ancestry, holds a Master’s degree in the Art of Leadership from Augsburg College and is a Certified Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist. She is the 2007 recipient of the Minneapolis FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award and the 2008 Sheila Wellstone Gold Watch Award from WATCH.
Jennifer Gentile Long – Jennifer serves as the Director of AEquitas: The Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women. She has worked on issues related to violence against women for more than a decade. For the past five years she has worked with civilian and military prosecutors, as well as other allied professionals, on the prosecution of violence against women and children. In addition to presenting on the topic of violence against women and children, she has authored several articles, a monograph, and a book chapter, and has peer reviewed numerous publications.
Katayoon Majd-Katayoon – Katayoon joined the Public Welfare Foundation in 2010 and serves as a Program Officer for Criminal and Juvenile Justice, focusing on juvenile justice issues. She previously worked as a senior staff attorney at the National Juvenile Defender Center, where she coordinated a national initiative to ensure fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in delinquency courts.
Elizabeth Miller, MD, PhD – Dr. Miller is the co-director of the Community PARTners Core, is Chief, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
April Osajima – April is public policy director for Girls Inc., a national nonprofit youth organization whose mission is to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold. She also works with local Girls Inc. affiliates to engage girls in advocacy and encourage them to vote and consider running for public office as adults. Osajima started her Washington career as a legislative aide to U.S. Rep. Peter Kostmayer (D-PA).
Jeannette Pai-Espinosa – Jeannette is President of the National Crittenton Foundation. She is nationally known as an expert on issues related to increasing ethnic and racial diversity in communities. A passionate advocate for human rights, Jeannette was appointed by former Oregon Gov. Barbara Roberts in 1991 as state director of affirmative action and senior policy advisor on human rights.
Patricia Puritz – Patti has worked as a child advocate in the juvenile justice system for over 30 years and currently serves as the executive director of the National Juvenile Defender Center – an organization devoted to ensuring excellence in juvenile defense. She has been involved in designing, implementing, managing and monitoring programs to reform the nation’s juvenile justice system; to deliver effective legal services to children; and, to improve the conditions under which children are confined.
Liz Ryan – Liz is President and CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice, a national organization she founded that serves to end the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth in the adult criminal justice system. Previously, Ryan served for five years as advocacy director for the Youth Law Center’s Building Blocks for Youth Initiative, a project to reduce the over-incarceration and disparate treatment of children of color in the juvenile justice system.
Marlene Sanchez – Marlene is the Executive Director of the Center for Young Women’s Development. Marlene came to the Center for Young Women’s Development at age 15 looking for employment and a way out of the juvenile justice system. She was hired as a community health outreach worker, providing HIV/STD education and harm reduction supplies and love to hundreds of young women who lived and worked in the underground street economies of San Francisco. She is currently the co-chair of the Community Justice Network for Youth, and a founding member of All of Us or None.
Vincent Schiraldi – Vincent is Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Probation and has a 25 year history of research, public education and direct services in the criminal and juvenile justice field. Before Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed him as commissioner, Schiraldi was founder and president of both the Justice Policy Institute and the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Recognized as a national leader in rehabilitation, Schiraldi has published over 30 articles and served on more than 10 boards and commissions in the field.
Francine Sherman – Francine is a clinical professor and Director of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project at Boston College Law School. Sherman speaks widely about girls in the justice system and conducts ongoing research regarding the pathways girls take into and through justice. Sherman is a founding member of the Girls’ Justice Initiative and the author of their recent report. “Girls in the Juvenile Justice System: Perspectives on Services and Conditions of Confinement.”
Debbi Dunn Solomon – An accomplished communications professional, Debbi has created strategies to promote progressive causes and social change for organizations ranging from community-based grassroots groups to major foundations. Most recently she served as a communications executive at The Atlantic Philanthropies. During her tenure at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Funding Partnerships, Debbi helped launch a national grantmaking program to use local strengths and wisdom to reduce violence in underserved and disadvantaged communities. She currently serves on the advisory board of Public Policy Communicators NYC.
Nanon Tally – Nanon has spent 13 years specializing in work with adolescent female offenders. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor, specializing in women’s issues and trauma. Her previous experience includes; group home supervisor of female home, case management of gender-specific caseload, Quality Assurance Monitor for female programs and State Program Manager for female services within the state of Utah.
Judge Mary Terrell (retired) – Judge Mary Terrell is a retired Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She is a former Assistant United States Attorney and youth advocate who founded the High Tea Society-Girls Connected program (HTS) in 1997 when she became a Judge. In 2008, Judge Terrell retired from the Court to expand the vision of the HTS.
Shakira Washington – Ms. Washington is the Director of Research and Community Outreach at the Human Rights Project for Girls. She has worked with direct service providers across the country to talk with system involved girls about their needs which resulted in the development of a broad network of service providers and advocates. Shakira also is on top of current policy issues related to girls and young women and has extensive public health research and outreach experience in the areas of HIV and African American women.