With a double major in psychology and sociology and a minor in criminal justice, Tiffany Marrow has plenty of schoolwork to keep her busy.
But Marrow, a member of the University’s African American Cultural Center, always makes time for the cultural center’s periodic pilgrimages to Journey House, a residential treatment center for delinquent teenage girls in Mansfield.
Marrow says she enjoys the quality time she spends with her friends at the Mansfield facility and looks forward to the times when they, in return, come to the University’s Storrs campus to get a feel for the college experience.
“Every time we go there, there is a different activity planned and every time you get to meet different girls,” says Marrow, a junior. “I met this one girl there and we instantly took to each other. I like being there to reach out and help… I enjoy being a mentor and letting them know that I’m here for them. For any of their needs about college and life, I’m here.”
Marrow is one of more than a dozen members of the African American Cultural Center who regularly participate in the Center’s “Journeys to Journey House” program as part of the center’s commitment to community service and outreach. Journey House residents and University students use the occasions as a bonding experience, mingling together and sharing laughs and stories as they participate in activities such as pumpkin carvings and Easter egg painting.
“This University’s most valuable resource is its students,” says Willena Kimpson Price, the cultural center’s director. Price launched the “Journeys to Journey House” initiative three years ago with Ken Gwozdz, a retired East Hartford High School assistant director, who sponsors adolescent outreach and mentoring programs through an enterprise he created called “Project Connect.”
Price and Gwozdz said the Journey House project was special from the start.
“Every time you bring the two groups together for an event you don’t know how it’s going to turn out…” Gwozdz says. “But every time I’ve brought them together it’s been successful….You don’t think that the next one can be better, but it is. The kids just keep getting better and better.”
Journey House is a13-bed residential treatment center for delinquent teenage girls located on the campus of Natchaug Hospital that provides housing, academic instruction and support programs for adolescent girls between the ages of 12 and 18 who have had involvement in Connecticut’s juvenile justice system. The majority of the girls living at Journey House also have had involvement with the state’s child welfare system. The facility is licensed by the state Department of Children and Families. The mission of Journey House is to provide the girls with a safe and productive atmosphere, helping them transcend their individual pasts and elevate themselves into becoming productive young adults.
Christy Calkins, Journey House assistant director, is a big fan of the UConn-Journey House partnership. These programs are “an amazing experience for the residents who are not able to go off-grounds,” says Calkins. “It allows them to be able to practice social relationships with students who are just a little bit older and more mature but who have made choices that have landed them at UConn.”
Calkins said the girls at Journey House look up to and admire the UConn students, who they find inspiring. One of the girls is now considering attending UConn as a result of the experiences she has enjoyed through the program, Calkins said.
The success of the Journeys to Journey House program has spawned interest from other student groups and organizations on campus. Such groups as the Asian American Cultural Center, Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center and the Women’s Center have forged bonds with Journey House in recent years and the program continues to expand.
