List of 15 items.

• Eleanor “Ellie” Bresnahan '19 | Counselor | Woburn Community Justice Support Center

  
  

  Ellie Bresnahan is a counselor at the Woburn Community Justice Support Center. The WCJSC is a court-ordered, community-based behavioral health center designed to divert individuals from incarceration and reduce their likelihood of re-offending. The WCJSC also supports re-entry for individuals leaving incarceration. Ellie is responsible for completing comprehensive assessments and intakes with court-involved individuals to construct personalized treatment plans that address their criminogenic needs. She facilitates psycho-educational curriculum to clients in group settings, as well as providing referrals and assistance to public benefits and community resource programs to address clients’ needs and reduce their risk for re-offense.  

• Kelly Brotzman | Executive Director | Prison Book Program

  
  

  Kelly Brotzman is the Executive Director of Prison Book Program (PBP), a nonprofit organization founded in 1972 which supports people in prisons and jails across the country by sending them free, high-quality books and reading materials that match their specific needs and interests. Under Kelly's leadership, PBP has grown tremendously, holding nearly 200 volunteer sessions per year and expanding to serve incarcerated readers in all 50 states. Her passion for connecting people inside and outside the American prison system comes from her experiences teaching college classes in prisons and volunteering with incarcerated people.
  
  

  Prior to joining PBP, Kelly spent 20 years in higher education. She directed service learning and social justice programs and taught courses about inequality. Kelly has a PhD in social ethics from the University of Chicago. In her free time, she likes looking at contemporary art and antiques and being outside, preferably with dogs.

• Matthew DelSesto | Sociology Department | Boston College

  
  

  Matt DelSesto is an author, educator, gardener, and sociologist.  His writing and teaching focus on sustainable communities and environmental justice, crime and corrections, and restorative justice.  In addition to teaching at colleges and universities or in community-based settings, he has taught or coordinated prison education programs for more than 15 years.  Most recently he developed an The Inside-Out Program at Boston College, which brings students from BC and incarcerated individuals together to study criminal justice, and the College Pathways Program, which prepares incarcerated men and women to navigate the logistics of higher education upon their release.  Matt recently completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence Initiative at Emerson College.  Outside of higher education, Matt has been a collaborator and consultant for nonprofit leaders on research, program evaluation, event facilitation, grant writing, and strategic planning. 
  
  

• Kristina Dolce | English Faculty and Restorative Justice Coordinator | Esperanza Academy

  
  Kristina Dolce serves as the Restorative Justice Coordinator and a member of the English department at Esperanza Academy. As the Restorative Justice Coordinator, Kristina Dolce is instrumental in integrating restorative practices into the school's culture and in fostering an environment where students feel seen, safe, and empowered to thrive. In her English classes, she focuses on closing the "imagination gap" by helping students envision themselves in diverse roles.

• Elevated Thought

  
  Officially founded in 2010, Elevated Thought (ET) was born in 2008; an idea that stemmed from a poem and a mural addressing social issues and demanding solutions. The mission quickly followed. Running our first art and social justice based workshop in 2010 and creating our first public art project in 2011, we have continued to strengthen our mission each year since; serving, inspiring, and seeking forms of liberation through creativity. ET believes that all young people should and could have access to wide-ranging, creative, and alternative learning opportunities. ET is designed to affirm cultural and community identity as well as to build the capacity for creative practices that enable youth to produce the stories and visions that lead to individual and community change.

• Chris Faraone | Journalist

  
  

  Chris Faraone is an award-winning journalist (AAN, NENPA), a former Boston Phoenix Staff Writer and Editor of DigBoston, and former adjunct professor of communications at Salem State University. He has more than a decade of media experience, has published four books on his own imprint, and has written features for publications ranging from The American Prospect to BuzzFeed. He co-founded the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism––a grassroots media institute that has seeded similar independent incubators in other states––and has also co-written books with legendary hip-hop acts including Cypress Hill and Raekwon.
  
  

• Avery Farmer | Fellow | Citizens for Juvenile Justice

  
  

  Avery Farmer joined Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ)  in September 2024 as the School to Prison Pipeline Fellow. He worked on prison release cases as a law clerk with the Public Defender Service in D.C., reduced low-income clients' debt through Harvard's Consumer Protection Clinic, and published articles on criminal law and social change as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

• Mac Hudson | Paralegal | Prisoners’ Legal Services of MA

  
  

  Paralegal, Race Equity in Corrections Community Liaison Registered Lobbyist and Founder of Access Mass Mac is also formerly incarcerated, having served 33 years in prison, most of which for a crime he did not commit.  

• Aryanna Mumford | Paralegal | Prisoners’ Legal Services of MA

  
  

  Paralegal working on the Prisoner Empowerment Project (PEP), which advocates for meaningful education and job training opportunities for incarcerated individuals to better support reentry and reduce recidivism 

• Alison Sexson |Attorney | Greater Boston Legal Services

  
  

  Since the summer of 2010, Alison Sexson has dedicated her life's work to understanding how to use the law in a way that will uplift those it has historically oppressed. Coming from five generations of educators, Alison is currently a staff attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services and is the point person for the School-to-Prison Pipeline Project. Every week, Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) provides free legal assistance and representation on civil (non-criminal) matters to hundreds of residents in the city of Boston and 31 surrounding cities and towns. When they have nowhere else to turn, families and individuals living in poverty, elders, and people with disabilities look to GBLS for help to secure the most basic necessities of life.
  
  

• Leon Smith | Executive Director | Citizens for Juvenile Justice

  
  

  Leon Smith has served as the executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ) since 2019. With a background as a juvenile court public defender and experience at the Vera Institute of Justice, Leon has dedicated his career to advocating for youth in the justice system. At the Center for Children’s Advocacy, he led efforts to reform Connecticut’s alternative schools and directed the Racial Justice Project, focusing on combating harsh school discipline, illegal school push-out, and targeting by law enforcement. He continues to contribute to juvenile justice reform in Massachusetts, including work on the Emerging Adult Justice Task Force and the School Resource Officer Memorandum of Understanding Commission.
  
  

• Aidan Wang | English & History Departments | CSW

  
  

  Aidan Wang (he/him/his) teaches in the English and History Departments. This is his second year at CSW, and one of his favorite courses to teach is the 11-12 history elective "Rocking the Schoolhouse: History of U.S. Education." 

• Leah Wang | Senior Research Analyst | Prison Policy Initiative

  
  

  Leah Wang is a Senior Research Analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to exposing the broader harms of mass incarceration. She has authored publications focused on the health of people in prisons and jails, conditions faced by people on parole and/or probation, and the environmental injustices created by mass incarceration. Leah holds a M.S in Sustainability Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a B.A in Economics and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College. Prior to joining the Prison Policy Initiative, Leah was an analyst at the Massachusetts Department of Correction, and has worked in agriculture, local food systems, and outdoor education.  

• Joshua Winer | Artist

  
  Joshua Winer is a Boston artist specializing in working with communities to create hands-on public art, mosaics and murals. He loves the process of teaching, mentoring and facilitating creativity and the expression of a community's voice and creativity as everyone works together to design and make the artwork. He has worked with schools of all grade levels, as well as religious communities, hospitals, and universities to create projects with themes and content that show the vision of the community. These works are in the Boston area, as well as across the country and abroad, including community projects in France, China and Thailand. Josh studied art as an undergraduate at Yale College and studied architecture at Harvard University. He is delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Cambridge School of Weston on this special project, created in honor of the 50th anniversary of Social Justice Day and in recognition of Michael Feldman, Josh's cousin.

• Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Action (IDEA) Committee

  
  The IDEA Committee at CSW is a group of students (there are two representative per class) and adults whose purpose is to work together to make CSW an open and safe community that encourages all voices to be heard in a respectful manner, promoting the enrichment of our school culture through discussions, events and wide-ranging curricula. As a committee, the group seeks to foster a campus that provides a sense of inclusiveness that reflects the broad range of ages, races, genders, ethnicities, cultures, nationalities, religions, sexual orientations, social and economic classes, and physical and learning differences in our community.