Current Projects

CT Department of Children and Families (DCF) is committed to becoming a racially just organization whose beliefs, values, policies and practices strive to achieve justice for all children and families. JRA Consulting has worked with DCF continuously since 2012 in this effort. Jen serves as a Tri-Chair of the Department’s Statewide Racial Justice Workgroup as well as works with senior management, the leadership team at DCF, and offices across the state to deepen their work related to racial justice, equity, and the elimination of disparities.

JRA Consulting serves as a lead consultant to the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s Executive Leadership with a continuous focus on anti-racism at all levels of CSSP’s work. With racial justice at CSSP’s throughline, Jen works closely with the President and CEO as a strategic thought partner as well as consultant on specific projects.

Partnering with the Center for the Study of Social Policy, JRA Consulting is helping lead an organizational-wide effort on anti-racism. Cara Collective, based in Chicago, is dedicated to developing employment pathways and eradicating poverty in transformative ways. All staff across the organization are engaged in this effort, involving the identification and deconstruction of racist practices, behaviors, and policies at all levels. This effort includes workshops, facilitated dialogues, and consultation on racism, White Supremacy Culture, history, identity, and culture.

In order to dismantle racism and achieve just outcomes for children, families, and staff of color, racial justice and equity work requires explicit leadership buy-in, combined with a commitment to sustained focus and intentional work. JRA Consulting has been working with the 26 person leadership team at Franklin County Children Services in a year-long Anti-Racist Leadership Learning Community to help them see racism at all levels of their system; to talk about racism openly and directly; and to address and dismantle racism wherever it shows up in service of racial justice for children, families, the community, and staff.

In 2018, JRA Consulting was part of a small team that helped the NCTSN develop a Position Statement on Racial Injustice and Trauma. JRA Consulting deepened this work by helping develop and lead a national Summit Initiative from 2020-2021 focused on Becoming Anti-Racist Organizations as a core part of trauma-informed systems. This resulted in the development of Being Anti-Racist Is Central to Trauma-Informed Care: Principles of an Anti-Racist, Trauma-Informed Organization. This initiative continued with a second Summit focused on Being Anti-Racist is Central to Trauma-Informed Care: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Child and Family Serving Systems held in October 2023. JRA Consulting is now part of the continuing faculty for the third initiative, The Implementation and Transformational Change Community, involving eight NCTSN sites over the course of the year as they focus on the deconstruction of racist systems within their work.

In 2020, JRA Consulting was brought into Vermont’s Family Services Division of the Department of Human Services to elevate their emerging work on racial equity. She has provided strategic consultation, facilitation, guidance, training, and structure to the Statewide Racial Equity Workgroup. She also works closely with the leadership team at the agency to build their understanding, awareness, and skills around leading racial justice work in their respective programs and Districts.

In 2022, the New England Association of Child Welfare Commissioners and Directors, together with the support of Casey Family Programs, convened the leaders of racial equity and justice work in the child welfare agencies across all six New England states. JRA Consulting serves as a tri-chair in the leadership of this learning and support community, facilitating and leading dialogues that promote the continuity and deepening of the work across all six states.

Together with Dr. Elizabeth Thompson, JRA Consulting has worked with the Child Health and Development Institute (CHDI) in Connecticut to support their efforts at becoming an anti-racist, trauma-informed organization. This work has included the development, delivery, and facilitation of in-person all-staff sessions as well as technical assistance and consultation between sessions.

JRA Consulting began supporting NYC ACS in 2021 as they moved from concept to implementation of safety culture practices, processes, and structures. She has helped create and support Local Action Teams across ACS that focus on culture change from the “ground” up, being led by those closest to the work. In this capacity, she facilitates regular meetings with staff across the city; works with the Governance and Implementation Teams; and strives to bring together the various ways that safety culture is reflected in day-to-day practice. She served as the Subject Matter Expert for the e-learning training that was developed for safety culture as well as the micro-learn module that focused exclusively on the intersection of racial justice and psychological safety.

The Certificate Program in Implementation Practice is intended to help participants strengthen the competencies required to support and sustain implementation and change efforts over time. The program provides hands-on opportunities to apply proven tools and strategies to individual implementation efforts, while connecting with and learning from peers experiencing similar implementation challenges. JRA Consulting serves as a faculty member for this program, participating in planning, facilitation, and leading individual sessions.

JRA Consulting has been partnering with CCTASI since 2017 with a focus partnering with young people who have lived expertise with the child welfare and/or youth legal (juvenile justice) systems in order to catalyze system transformations. This partnership has included co-leading the TAY strategic advisory board, consulting on the films developed by CCTASI, and informing the development and revisions of curricula for providers who support these young people.

Beginning in 2016, JRA Consulting joined the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS) to develop, pilot, and implement the Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment in child and family-serving organizations across the US. In this partnership, JRA Consulting has played a key role in co-leading learning cohorts as well as co-developing a coach-the-coach curriculum to expand the TIOA’s use. Most recently, the development team has recrafted the entire model to focus on the embodiment of anti-racist ways of being as core for TIOA implementation.