National Justice Leaders Join Healing Justice in Improving Victim Services

Healing Justice is supported by many compassionate volunteers. They serve on our  Board of Directors and Advisory Boards and Committees, all generously donating their time and expertise to support Healing Justice’s mission and work.

For Volunteer Appreciation Month we would like to highlight the amazing contributions of the Advisory Committee that oversees our grant project with the US Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime. That project, Responding to Original Victims in Wrongful Convictions, is examining gaps in the delivery of support and services to crime victims in cases involving wrongful convictions and exonerations and will create a wide variety of first-ever resources for improving support and services.

The success of this historic and important project would not be possible without the members of this multi-disciplinary committee, who have shared an abundance of time and expertise to inform the creation of key new resources, as well as to help ensure that those new resources both meet the needs of the original victims and are of practical use to practitioners. We are deeply grateful to these committee members (in alphabetical order):

Lorie Brisbin

Correctional Program Specialist, National Institute of Corrections

William Brooks

Executive Board, International Association of Chiefs of Police; Chief Norwood MA Police Department

Janet Burke

Crime survivor from a Virginia exoneration case

Penny Beerntsen

Crime survivor from a Wisconsin exoneration case

Kimberly Cook

Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of North Carolina Wilmington

Steve Derene

Executive Director, National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators

Meg Garvin

Executive Director, National Crime Victims Law Institute

John Hollway

Executive Director, Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice

Lisa Perlman

Senior Assistant District Attorney, Kings County District Attorney's Office

Anne Seymour

Co-founder and Senior Advisor of the Justice Solutions

Christy Sheppard

Murder victim family member from an Oklahoma exoneration case

Steven Siegel

Director of Victim Services and Program Development, Denver District Attorney's Office

Darrel Stephens

Former Executive Director, Major Cities Chiefs Association; Retired Chief Charlotte NC Police Department

Yolanda Thomas

Murder victim family member from a North Carolina exoneration case

Jennifer Thompson

Founder, Healing Justice and crime survivor from North Carolina exoneration case