Janelle has worked with at-risk and proven-risk young people for over 20 years.

In former role, Janelle works alongside the Office of Community Engagement and Public Safety, helping to create and lead initiatives that will impact and benefit the lives of young
people and their families within the City of Boston. Janelle also served as the Master in
Public Policy Concentration Chair at Brandeis and supported and led a new initiative at
Brandeis University Heller School on racial tech equity. Janelle currently serves as the
Assistant Director for the Racial Justice Tech and Policy program under the leadership
of Dr. Maria Madison and Dr. Anita Hill. Janelle is the founder of Transition HOPE, a
program designed to give access and opportunities to those within the pipeline. In all
her work, she designs opportunities to foster reciprocal learning and change-making
between young people and stakeholders who develop the policies and programs that
serve them. She currently serves on the Coalition for Juvenile Justice board as the
Northeast Regional Representative and Governor Bakers Juvenile Justice Advisory
Board.

Janelle, previously from the Boston Public Schools, where she served as the District
Coordinator for system-involved youth for two years. Janelle led and created initiatives
focused on access and opportunity for system-involved youth. In this role, Janelle
worked with BPS students detained within the Department of Youth Services, within the
diversion program led by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and those dually
involved (Department of Children and Families) in the system. Janelle created a
program in 2017 with Brandeis University and the Department of Youth Services that
allows students who have been adjudicated and are still within the custody of DYS to
attend a class called “Investigating Journalism.” Continuing to bridge academics and
young people to create a different narrative for themselves, Janelle created a program
called Transition HOPE which works with eight colleges/universities that host students
on campus for one week during the summer. Understanding that adolescents are not
the catalyst for system-involvement behavior, Janelle worked with elementary school-
age students to create a boxing and bonding program. 

Prior to Janelle working for the District, Janelle was a teacher at East Boston High and
worked with her students to create the first known high school charter of the NAACP. 
Janelle attributes much of her relationship-building skills and ability to understand the
young people she works with to her time as a social worker for the Department of
Children and Families. Janelle was an ongoing caseworker for four years and her last
two years as an adolescent worker.