Jo is a different kind of social worker. To date, she has worked in 30 states and she isn’t done yet.She recently completed a three year fellowship with the Office for Victims of Crime within the Department of Justice. She traveled the United States talking to people about ways to improve our country's repsonse to sexual assault. She created and updated national resources and submitted a 50-page report on ways to make national changes. This final document included the latest research from six major universities. Currently, Jo is preparing new social workers to make big systems change via public policy. She melded two existing paradigms to organize efforts on many dimesnsions and encourages optimism and curiosity. START-UP PERSON: Jo has a strong track record of starting new programs, collaborations and initiatives. She LOVES to create solutions that meet the needs of children, youth, families and communities. She builds these efforts from ground zero: assessing community needs and strengths, finding funding, hiring and training great staff, testing out innovative approaches, creating data systems, developing evaluation outcomes and bringing unlikely partners to the table to make real change.VORACIOUS RESEARCHER: When Jo starts a new project, she reads everything. She digs into existing knowledge and talks with researchers about their studies.INNOVATOR: Jo has always been someone who questions the status quo. She immerses herself in the work and identifies elements that are missing from how we do our work. Then, she seeks out answers in predictable and unpredictable places to improve our helping efforts.COLLABORATION BUILDER: It seems like every funder wants us to work in collaborations, but there is so little information available to help us do this effectively, especially when members are from very different systems. Watch for Jo's next series on community stages of development and its impact on collaboration-building.TEACHER / TRAINER: With undergrads, graduate students, medical students and professionals across systems. AUTHOR-IN-PROGRESS: Writing has become a new passion for Jo. Words are flying off her laptop even though she never really learned keyboard skills. She wants to share what she has learned in her 40 years as a social worker and hopes to persuade her colleagues to do the same. Watch for new websites and videos soon.