South Carolina
JusticeWorks’ 19th Birthday!
JWYC-Richland County, SC staff model their new JWYC shirts to celebrate JusticeWorks’ 19th Birthday.
Photo Above – (Front Row, L to R): Lotte Bonneau, LaQuile West, Pamela Gamble, Christine Willis;
(Back Row, L to R): Rodrecus Atkinson, Grenisha Beatty, Ervin Bond
Photo Below – Front Row, L to R): Joy Currence, Mellisa Young; (Back Row, L to R): Cedric Swiggins, Valentine Baptiste-Thomas, Monique Ontiveros, Latoya Ross, Paula Huston-McNair
Richland County, South Carolina Helps Celebrate JusticeWorks’ 19th Year!
JusticeWorks YouthCare celebrated its 19th Birthday on August 1, 2018! From our humble beginnings in 1999 with only one service (JustCare®) and two staff members, we have grown to serve child welfare, juvenile probation, adult corrections, and school institutions in 91 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Maryland, and Florida. To celebrate and honor the hard work and commitment of each staff member, our President and CEO, Dan Heit, gifted JWYC shirts to more than 600 JusticeWorks employees. Our staff in Richland County, South Carolina, responded to Mr. Heit’s generosity by sending him a photo of themselves posing with their shirts.
All of our efforts and all of our success stories with thousands of children and families each year are only possible because of the commitment and hard work of our employees. “We have built a winning culture of doing ‘whatever it takes’ to achieve positive outcomes with our families AND to be able to document the results of our work, so that our public sector partners know that their money is well-spent. This formula has kept us going & growing and will continue to do so!,” said Dan Heit in an email to all of his employees at JusticeWorks. In the email, Mr. Heit also thanked everyone for helping to make JWYC’s 19th birthday possible and for helping to build better futures for children, families, and our community.
Thank you, Mr. Heit, for the shirts – we’re happy to be part of JusticeWorks as it begins it’s 20th year.
Family Engagement Services are off to a great start in South Carolina!
We are happy to announce that National Youth Advocate Program (NYAP) has chosen JusticeWorks to serve as one of their providers for Family Engagement Services in the 11 counties that make up Region 4. We are honored to be partnering with NYAP to provide this great service to families referred by DSS. Our main goal is to support families and prevent children from entering or remaining in foster care. We do this by seeking out additional family members that can support the children, identifying resources needed, and becoming creative with solutions to problems that affect our families.
We currently have a great team of four coordinators who have been gone through extensive training and supervision in order to provide services such as Family Team Meetings and Family Group Conferences.
The program started in January and we are proud to say that we have already held eight successful services to identify creative solutions to keep families together. We have a wonderful team, stay tuned to learn more about the work they are doing! read more…
JusticeWorks BehavioralCare Welcomes Our New Executive Director!
JusticeWorks BehavioralCare is pleased to announce that Krista Godek, LISW-CP, has been promoted to become our Executive Director in the State of South Carolina!
Krista’s career began in education as a Special Education teacher where her concern for children led her to obtaining a Master’s Degree in Social Work and then becoming a Licensed Practitioner of the Healing Arts. She worked in a variety of educational and treatment environments before joining JusticeWorks BC as a Supervisor in 2014. Her passionate commitment to our work and her skills led to several promotions, the last being our state-wide Director of Operations. She has deepened our commitment to quality service, and helped lead the continuous expansion of staff and services throughout the state.
Krista exemplifies the JusticeWorks philosophy of creating a great place to work, building strong teams, and supporting staff to do their best while assuring accountability and doing ‘whatever it takes’ to achieve positive outcomes.
Congratulations Krista!
ABC15 News Special Report: Raising Teens – An Interview with JWBC
Click here to watch the accompanying video.
The teenage years are a time of dramatic changes in the way kids think and act.
Experts say brain development can lead to behavioral and psychological changes, and as parents, you might find yourselves butting heads more often than not.
Studies show family relationships are a key source of influence for teenagers.
ABC 15 is working for you to help strengthen those relationships and ease the frustrations of raising a teen.
“Disrespectful behaviors, acting out behaviors, and a lot of it is verbal aggression,” said Kim Parsons, JusticeWorks Behavioral Care.
If you recognize any of these behaviors, you might have a teenager. read more…
JusticeWorks Behavioral Care Awarded License to Provide Therapeutic Foster Care
JusticeWorks Behavioral Care was recently awarded a Child Placing Agency license by the Department of Social Services. Many thanks to Executive Director, Tomeika Martin, and TFC Program Director Nikita Davis for their hard work making this service a reality. We are pleased to offer therapeutic foster care giving some of South Carolina’s most vulnerable children a place of safety and well-being which ultimately leads to permanency.
Our Therapeutic Foster Care program is an enhanced level of service provided in a home setting. Children receiving Therapeutic Foster Care services have been identified as having moderate to severe mental health issues and require consistency, structure, and stability to help them excel in the home, school, and community environments.
Therapeutic Foster Care services are provided by highly trained foster parents with the support of JusticeWorks’ clinical staff. We assist foster parents in having a long-term strategy for the betterment of the child, or children, and provide them with skills to deal with daily challenges. JWBC supports our TFC parents through training, 24/7 phone or on-site consultation, respite relief when necessary and monthly support groups.
We are excited about the opportunity to offer this service throughout South Carolina. We have begun recruiting foster families in the Columbia and Florence areas. Like all of our other programs our goal is to be the premier provider and to achieve positive outcomes.
Click here to learn more about Therapeutic Foster Care.
A Heartfelt Thank You
(An expression of gratitude from one of our own, Tasha Williams, JusticeWorks Behavioral Care, SC).
On February 18, 2016, my family and I had the unfortunate experience of tragedy like none other. Since then, I have learned a number of things. One is that for every hurt and every tear, there will be a hug, a call, an expression of love in some manner. I have long been taught that God will provide for and comfort us, even in our weakest times. The past few weeks has allowed me to experience this in a mighty way.
