Jennifer relocated with her family from Chicago, Illinois to Houston, Texas in 1980. She graduated from Michael E. Debakey High School for the Health Professions and enrolled in Texas Southern University with an undecided major. After getting married and starting a family, she postponed her education and joined the corporate sector to pursue a career in sales, working for Continental Airlines, The GAP, and Nabisco Foods, Inc.

In 2003, she completed her bachelor’s degree from Texas Southern University, Master’s degree from the University of Houston (2004) and licensing in Social Work (2004). In 2007, she returned to the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work to pursue a PhD, where her research areas include; strength based programs as an alternative to Boot Camps for incarcerated minority men (PhD not completed).

Specializing in crisis intervention, she’s managed a program for women and children on welfare; provided case management services to severe and persistent mentally ill wards of the county through Harris County’s Guardianship Program; provided crisis intervention and therapeutic services to children and adolescents in the North Forest Independent School District through Intra-Care Psychiatric Hospital; worked as psych response team member for West Oaks Psychiatric Hospital’s Mobile Assessment Team. She has established a private practice facilitating life-skills (anger management/conflict resolution, behavior management, personal development, self-care/self-esteem, parenting, gang prevention and intervention) for children and adolescents with behavioral issues through the courts of the Justice of the Peace; created and directed a behavior modification camp for children and adolescents with severe criminal histories; she also provides training and development to schools, agencies and organizations, teaching on topics such as Ethics, Dealing with Difficult People, Compassion Fatigue/Secondary Trauma, and Self-Care Practices; she was invited to become a part of the faculty at Texas Southern University in the Department of Social Work and served as field liaison and visiting instructor for 8 years.

Most currently she served as Managing Director of Reentry Services for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office where she has created programs for human sex trafficking and prostitution, pregnant and post-partum women, women with children, veterans, substance use, elderly men and fathers . This job also includes overseeing the Reentry Center at the Joint Processing Center at the Harris County Jail. She currently serves on the board for Homeless Coalition’s Way Home Continuum of Care Program, VAST (Veteran Advocacy, Service and Training), and SER Jobs Program Advisory Committee. She has published an article in the Journal of Family Strengths, Mentoring Moms: The critical health and safety needs of pregnant offenders in the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office reentry program (2015). She has been highlighted in the New York Times, The Texas Tribune, The Houston Chronicle, UHD Magazine, Isiah Carey’s ISIAH FACTOR, Houston Public Media, KHOU, Fox News, Univision, Telemundo, BBVA and other local publications for the transformational work she has done in the Harris County Jail.

In March 2022, she was named “Civilian of the Year,’ by the American Jail Association.

She is married to Eric (1990) and together they have three children, Tye, Ken and Kasie, and two granddaughters, Teiondria and McKinna.