Wellroot Family Services Welcomes Two New Executive Leaders to Support More Families in Georgia
Wellroot Family Services, one of Georgia’s largest and longest-operating child welfare organizations, welcomes Christina Lennon and Jenny Paveglio to help lead the organization’s new family preservation work.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tucker, Ga. June 15, 2021 – In response to the ongoing child welfare crisis, Wellroot Family Services is launching a new strategic plan to keep more families together in Georgia. The new plan will revolve around Wellroot’s four existing programs and three new programs focusing on family preservation and equipping struggling parents with the resources they need.
Allison Ashe, CEO of Wellroot Family Services, states, “I’m excited to welcome our two newest members to the Wellroot Family. With the wealth of talent and expertise our newest leaders bring to a well-established and strong team at Wellroot, we are looking forward to quickly executing critical programs and services to keep families that are in crisis together.”
To help launch the new programs, Wellroot has added two new executive-level positions, a Chief Strategy and Implementation Officer and a Clinical Director.
Christina Lennon, Chief Strategy and Implementation Officer (CSIO)
Christina Lennon joins Wellroot Family Services with over 25 years of experience driving change and innovation in nonprofits. For the past eight years, she has served as a consultant working with Coxe Curry and Associates, where she has supported various nonprofits to implement their strategic initiatives. Christina is also an Adjunct Professor within the Andrew Young School at Georgia State University. The course she teaches centers around successful strategies to leading change within communities.
Her work has been recognized by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, who named her Georgia’s Revolutionary Leader of the Year, the Andrew Young School, who selected her as their Commencement Speaker, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. As CSIO, Christina’s role is to convene key stakeholders to identify, analyze, and build solutions to complex community issues impacting child and family wellbeing. The CSIO is responsible for implementing evidence-based best practices with fidelity to create meaningful impact and change in the lives of those we serve and share insights and learnings externally to drive systemic change. The CSIO will thoughtfully partner with program leadership and the communities in which Wellroot supports to ensure new programming will be seamlessly integrated to ensure long-term success and strong outcomes.
“Healthy families are key to a healthy community.” Christina Lennon says. “Wellroot is investing in mobilizing communities to empower families from a strength-based perspective, and I am thrilled to lead this effort.”
Jenny Paveglio, Clinical Director
Jenny Paveglio, MSW, LCSW, brings Wellroot over 30 years of experience in behavioral health and program development as their Clinical Director. Jenny is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in the treatment of trauma. Jenny received her Master’s of Social Work Degree from Hunter College School of Social Work. She has extensive experience working with trauma-related disorders; children and non-offending caregivers dealing with sexual abuse, TF-CBT, Play Therapy The Mindful Solution, DBT, Crisis Intervention, Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM)®, Community Resiliency Model (CRM)®, as well as experience implementing Reaching Teens.
She joins Wellroot Family services from a long tenure at Covenant House, where she worked closely with multiple sites across the nation to address homelessness, poverty, trafficking, and exploitation and executing key programing, including trauma-informed care, mental health services, and helping launch the largest expansion in Covenant House history with their first new residential program in over 17 years.
Jenny’s experience will guide Wellroot’s growth into behavioral health services in targeted areas across the state to ensure families are successful in our family prevention programming.
“I’m looking forward to creating and developing a team of mental health professionals that will be able to change the trajectory of a family’s ability to stay together and thrive,” says Jenny Paveglio. “The child welfare arena is changing to embrace the importance of healthy birth families, and we are thrilled to be at the forefront of this work with the State and other collaborative partners in communities across Georgia.”
About Wellroot Family Services:
by the belief that every child deserves a loving, compassionate, and nurturing home, Wellroot Family Services, formally The United Methodist Children’s Home, is Georgia’s longest-serving child welfare organization. For 150 years, Wellroot has provided homes for the state’s most at-risk children, teens, young adults, and families. Wellroot’s programs include foster care, kinship care, transitional and independent living, family housing, and family preservation.
Media Contact:
Brett Hillesheim
Wellroot Family Services
1967 Lakeside Parkway, Suite 400
Tucker, GA 30084
Telephone: 404-327-5820
Email: bhillesheim@wellroot.org
Website: https://wellroot.org
PHOTO: Wellroot CEO, Allison Ashe, introduces new Wellroot staff and the new strategic plan leaders in Gwinnett County