Jessica Wheeldon, MS, is a regional learning coordinator for the CWTS. In this role, she facilitates Fundamentals courses with new caseworkers and supports connections with counties to continuously learn how CWTS can best meet their needs. Jessica relishes the opportunity to create a culture with new caseworkers that parallels the types of relationships we seek to build with the families we serve. Such relationships recognize and elicit participants’ unique contributions, abilities, and perspectives; establish safe places from which to learn, teach, and challenge each other; and prioritize thoughtful, intentional decision making together.

Jessica has been working with youth and families in residential, community, and school-based settings since 1998. She transitioned into child welfare in 2007, when she became a caseworker in La Plata County. Several years later, she was first exposed to Differential Response (DR) practices, and she has been hooked ever since. Jessica cofacilitated the initial training when La Plata County rolled out DR in 2013; deepening the practice by inviting families’ wisdom and supporting workers’ rigor, balance, and morale have been her mission ever since. Jessica is trained in mediation and has a master’s degree in management and leadership to round out her child welfare–specific knowledge and experience.

Jessica believes in having at least a dozen more books on hand than she could ever possibly have the time to read, letting her imagination wander with no predetermined goal—sometimes in front of a canvas with paintbrush in hand, Oxford comma use, and appreciating how far gluten-free food has come in the last two decades (have you tried the Oreos?!).