Beyond Traditional Social Work: Conversations with Social Work Pathfinders

Jesselly De La Cruz is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in NJ. She completed a Post-Graduate Certificate in Family Therapy at The Multicultural Family Institute, Inc. in Highland Park, NJ. Having originated from an underprivileged background and being a child of an immigrant family herself, Dr. De La Cruz’s education and work has been motivated by her desire to support traditionally underserved populations. Towards that overarching goal, she has worked with Latino advocacy nonprofit agencies. She currently serves as Executive Director for the Latino Action Network Foundation. Her clinical experience includes providing emergency screening of persons in mental health crisis at an inner city hospital, outpatient and in-home child and family therapy, and clinical consultation for nursing homes with primarily Spanish-speaking residents. In addition, she has extensive experience working in the prevention of child sexual abuse by conducting forensic evaluations, individual, group and family therapy at an intensive outpatient program for court mandated youth who have sexually abused and/or have fire setting behaviors. Jesselly has also coordinated the psychological treatment of child sexual abuse survivors and their non-offending families in Hudson County, NJ. She currently serves as Clinical Director for sexual assault program in Bergen County. Dr. De La Cruz is Past President and a Lifetime Member of the Latino Mental Health Association of NJ and Clinical and Research Member of the NJ Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. She is committed to dedicating her time to using her skills to help organizations that serve to support and empower Latino communities, BIPOC and LGBT youth, and families living below the federal poverty limit.

As a Corporate Social Worker, with a background in human resources and internal communications, Jennifer has expertise in human behavior, employee experience, social learning, and digital engagement. She’s a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner with a natural ability to problem solve and thrives on improving efficiency and clarity. From four employees to thousands, Jennifer has experience with small and large organizations alike. Currently, Jennifer works for a large healthcare organization as a Change Strategist on the Workplace Technologies Adoption and Change Management Team and is responsible for the Microsoft Teams and Yammer maturity strategies. At a former employer, Jennifer designed and implemented an award-winning social communications strategy that evolved executive communications to be more engaging and social, doubled the percentage of active users, and increased membership size by more than 500%. Before her corporate work, she spent time in the nonprofit world — specifically, as a program director, case manager, and therapist, with specializations in teenage pregnancy, addiction therapy, and violence against women. Along with a co-founder, Jennifer recently created the Corporate Social Work Collective, an organization dedicated to advancing the field of Corporate Social Work by building community, education, and advocacy. Jennifer has a Bachelor of Science in Social Work and a Masters in Social Welfare with a concentration in Macro Social Work and Leadership.

Debbie began her Beber Camp career in 1991 as a camper. She spent six consecutive summers as a camper, CIT(counselor in training), and then a counselor. Her undergraduate degree is in Inclusive Elemental Education and Psychology from Syracuse University. She taught 7/8th grade special education for three years while completing a Masters degree from the University of Chicago in Social Service and Administration. Upon graduation, Debbie has worked as a School Social Worker and spent her summers at Beber! 3 years ago she joined the full time team as the Assistant Director of Community Care. She also works in a private practice seeing individuals and facilitating the Peers social skills group. Debbie lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband, and 2 children.

Marisa Quin is currently a Lead Business Intelligence Engineer at Saks Fifth Avenue. With a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art and a Masters of Social Work from the University of Maryland Baltimore, Marisa offers something unique to data analytics. She looks to build data into something beautiful while working with teams in order to make it useful for them while growing their data skills. Marisa gained a huge interest and passion for data after graduating with her MSW with a Macro concentration as she began to think, "How can we use data to better inform the work we do and how can we help others realize its potential?". She has been on that journey through the nonprofit sector and currently in the for profit sector.