Founded in 2020, the NYC Justice Peer Initiative (JPI) was established by a diverse coalition of public health leaders, nonprofit organizations, advocates, academic partners, and Justice Peers. Justice Peers are people with lived experience of the criminal legal system and recovery from behavioral health challenges who use that experience to support others navigating similar systems.
Under the leadership of founding Executive Director Helen “Skip” Skipper, JPI advances the Justice Peer workforce through professional development, workforce certification support, employer technical assistance, policy advocacy, and movement building. JPI’s mission is to ensure that justice peers are not only delivering services but also helping design, lead, and transform solutions within the criminal justice and behavioral health systems.
JPI’s work expands access to peer support for people impacted by traumatizing systems, creates meaningful economic opportunities for justice-impacted people, and centers lived expertise as a vital force for systems change. Since her final release from incarceration in 2007, Skip has worked in peer support and has become a nationally recognized lived-experience leader, scholar, and advocate. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the NYC Board of Correction, adjunct professor at LaGuardia Community College, and member of the Council on Criminal Justice.
Supported by a 25-member Executive Committee, most of whom bring their own lived experience with justice and behavioral health systems, JPI has grown from a NYC-based grassroots initiative into a statewide workforce movement with a growing national platform. Today, JPI provides training, capacity building, policy advocacy, and an annual conference focused on elevating lived experience into professional lived expertise.