Hi! I’m Jessie.

I’m a writer, activist, and strategist working at the intersections of mental health, human rights, storytelling, and social change.

Although consulting, activism, and creativity appear as separate sections on this site, I experience them as deeply interconnected — each informing and shaping the others.

I come to everything I do through personal and family experience. As a teenager, I witnessed the harms of the mental health system and refused to accept them as inevitable. In college, I found the history of the mad movement and other grassroots struggles against psychiatric oppression. Discovering these histories gave me a sense of hope, political grounding, and belonging that continues to shape my life and work.

I currently work as an independent consultant supporting organizations and leaders. My work spans fundraising strategy, organizational development, and leadership support, with a focus on helping people navigate growth, change, and complexity without losing sight of their values. Much of my practice lives in the tension between liberatory commitments and institutional realities. I’m especially interested in how organizations build collaborative infrastructure, navigate change, and remain accountable to the communities they serve.

This practice is informed by my own experience working within nonprofits. I previously served as Executive Director of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), a grassroots education project that evolved into a national training institute. There, I helped guide the organization’s transition from a volunteer-run collective into a staffed nonprofit, co-led the development of the Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum, and curated dozens of public programs reaching thousands of people each year. Previously, I managed institutional giving at WITNESS, an international human rights organization focused on the use of video and technology in documenting abuse and defending human rights. There, I stewarded foundation and government partnerships supporting global advocacy, media, and accountability efforts.

My activism centers mad liberation, non-carceral approaches to care, and cross-movement organizing. I’m especially interested in how storytelling, political education, and dialogue across difference can expand our collective imagination around crisis response and healing.

I also write, take photographs, and cook — my core creative practice. I post about food and cooking on Instagram and occasionally write on my Substack, Cooking as Care. My writing has appeared in We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, The Intima Journal of Narrative Medicine, and the Village Voice.