Jenny Stern-Carusone

Jenny Stern-Carusone has extensive experience working with youth in both the mentoring and juvenile justice fields.  Her background includes running mentoring programs for Committed Partners for Youth for nine years with a focus on system-involved youth and youth impacted by incarceration.  As Program Director, Jenny provided strategic development for the mentoring programs, spearheaded program implementation, provided all the compliance monitoring, grant reporting and grant management, and provided direct services by maintaining a caseload during her tenure.  Jenny is a charter member of the Mentoring Children of Prisoners Support Center National Advisory Board and works on Re-Entry issues in her community.  Prior to joining the mentoring field, Jenny worked for seven years in juvenile justice, including paralegal support to attorneys in a juvenile defense firm on both dependency and delinquency cases.  She was instrumental in the launch of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative as a member of the Multnomah County model site and designed the Defense Advocate role.  Jenny participated on the national team helping to replicate JDAI in jurisdictions across the nation.  Additionally, Jenny established and ran a Peer Court in a rural area outside Eugene, Oregon, serving first time offenders through peer-based accountability and community engagement.  Jenny has a Masters in Social Work with a focus on Community Based Practice from Portland State University, a B.A. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon and a Paralegal certificate from Portland Community College.