Wolverine Human Services had the honor of attending the National Conference on Juvenile Justice from March 18th to the 21st in San Diego, California. Here, our representatives had the pleasure of speaking with judges, program directors, program managers, and administrators from across the nation. With more than 500 participants, faculty, exhibitors, and guests who attended the conference it was clear that Wolverine Human Services stood out among the rest! Many were extremely impressed with the varying programs we offered and the Salesforce technology we have implemented to make these programs run efficiently.
As this was Wolverine Human Services’ first out-of-state conference, no one was sure of what to expect. It was an amazing opportunity for WHS workers to make connections with agencies across the country and gain some insight on Wolverine Human Services’ role nationally. Many were impressed that one agency could offer all these programs and several showed interest in sending children to us in the future. Amber Mugan, one of our proud WHS representatives, shared some of her amazing insights from the conference:
“Wolverine Human Services is not only ahead of the game in Michigan with our services and technology, but nationally! Many states complemented the amount of services that WHS provides, and the work that we do with the BECK institute. They were also pretty impressed with the virtual tour of our sites, and our IPresent program, which allows us to showcase all of our program informational sheets and email them instantly off of our iPads.
As far as lessons learned, I would say never think too small. There is always room for growth and sometimes even bigger than we expect!”
Her counterpart Dennis Rienstra added:
“I would say that the biggest take away for me was that I am not only proud of the services that WHS provides but I now see how well we stack up against other agencies nationally. WHS is just as good, if not better, than the other agencies that were represented at the conference. I am excited and confident in Wolverine Human Services future endeavors both locally and nationally.”
Wolverine Human Services was honored to be able to showcase the great advancements we have made to our juvenile justice system here in Michigan and we are excited to see how our success may lead to future changes across the country. However, none of this would have been possible without the help of our passionate teams of therapists, case managers, team managers, family workers, and staff. These team members constantly go above and beyond to turn our children into Victors and this was very clear to everyone in attendance at the National Conference on Juvenile Justice.