"I’ve always been in child welfare. I studied Child Development and Family Relations at IUP, took the civil service test, and became a caseworker in Allegheny County’s North office. After we moved north, I transferred to Venango, and that’s where I first learned about LSI. I didn’t see myself staying in frontline work forever, and the LSI model just clicked for me—it really brought together everything I’d learned as a caseworker, but in a different way."

“I’m a perpetual student of life. In my opinion, if you’re breathing, you’re learning! That’s partly what brought me to Voce. I was already working at Washington County Children and Youth as a legal secretary, but I was at a crossroads and wanted to learn more about child welfare and the law."

I always felt I wanted to work with kids, I just wasn’t sure what that would look like. When I was attending Mansfield University, I took a social work class, and right away I knew this was it! In one way or another, I’ve been connected to child welfare throughout my career.

Back in 2020, when COVID had shut down so much of the world, I felt a calling to do something more. I had been working as a paralegal for an attorney in private practice at the time and helping to take care of my mother who had Alzheimer’s. Ultimately, I decided to get my master’s degree in English Composition and Literature and, in my studies, felt this call toward social change.

For more than 25 years, Voce has worked alongside our community to advance our mission and support the people we serve. Today, we’re excited to share something new—The Vocal Point, Voce’s first-ever external quarterly newsletter, launching December 10.

There’s a line in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem Success that has been imprinted on me since I first heard it at my college graduation: 'To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived . . . This is to have succeeded.' I even have it on a charm bracelet given to me by my husband. Working in foster care and adoption, you try for everyone. You don’t always have a win at the end but when you do, it’s what keeps you going.