Our Team

Ashwini Jaisingh, Esq., Senior Immigration Attorney, has more than 10 years of experience working on immigrant and worker rights issues, including domestic worker rights, wage theft, and labor trafficking. Prior to joining the SAFE Center, Ms. Jaisingh was a staff attorney at the Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition (TASSC) International, where she represented torture survivors in asylum cases and family petitions, while also tracking immigration policy changes and engaging in advocacy efforts. Before beginning law school, Ms. Jaisingh spent six years as an organizer at CASA de Maryland, where she worked with community members, including dozens of labor trafficking survivors, on immigrant and worker rights campaigns. She earned her JD from American University Washington College of Law, and her BA in Anthropology and Spanish from Georgetown University. She is fluent in Spanish.

Caroline Raschbaum, Esq., Senior Immigration Attorney, has extensive experience representing detained unaccompanied children in removal proceedings, asylum interviews, state court, and T visa and other immigration applications to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Prior to joining the SAFE Center, Ms. Raschbaum worked as a senior attorney with Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, where she led a team in providing legal screenings, Know Your Rights presentations, and direct services to children in Office for Refugee Resettlement facilities in Maryland and Virginia. Ms. Raschbaum also led the Detained Children’s Program’s efforts to manage the arrival and legal services of Unaccompanied Afghan Minors on a national scale, and developed programmatic strategies to mitigate the effects of the Migrant Protection Protocol (“Remain in Mexico” program) on unaccompanied minors. Ms. Raschbaum earned her JD from American University Washington College of Law and BA in Sociology and Hispanic Studies from The College of William and Mary. She is fluent in Spanish.

Ciara supports the SAFE Center as a Case Manager and Regional Navigator. She brings six years of experience in direct services, which include crisis intervention, suicide intervention, and case management. Ciara’s most recent positions include being a Case Manager at St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore and a Crisis Intervention Counselor at the Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. Ciara is pursuing a Master of Science in Counseling from Walden University.

Jackie Alas supports the SAFE Center as an Bilingual Intake Coordinator. She has over ten years of working in the medical field, providing direct services and community organization. Before joining the SAFE Center team, Jackie worked at Adventist Healthcare, where she was the Care Navigation Community Healthcare Worker. She has served as the patient advocate and liaison between the patient and the inpatient care team, a vital role in which she participated in interdisciplinary rounds by providing a voice for her patients. Jackie is pursuing her associate degree in Public Health from Howard Community College.

Jannina Santana is the Paralegal for the Legal Services Team at the UMD SAFE Center. She has over 7 years of experience as a Paralegal in various firm settings. During her five years at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP, she assisted in Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) pro-bono cases. She is fluent in both Spanish and English. She is currently attending Prince George’s Community College to earn her Associates Degree in Paralegal Studies.

Joanne Morrison is a communication strategist with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). She has worked in public affairs and marketing for the university on a wide range of issues including public health, advocacy, and research. Prior to joining UMB, Joanne worked in Washington, D.C. in the financial sector as a communications director. Earlier in her career, she was an economic correspondent at Reuters covering global economic policy, the financial markets, and social reforms. Joanne earned a masters degree in marketing management at the University of Maryland Global Campus and a bachelors degree in English and political science from Frostburg State University.

Email: joanne.morrison@umaryland.edu

Julia Aviles Zavala, LBSW, supports the SAFE Center as a Bilingual Case Manager and Regional Navigator for Prince George’s and Montgomery County. She has six years of work with CASA and three years of paralegal experience in immigration. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and is a first generation American who takes pride in her Mexican and Honduran heritage. Julia is a graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she obtained her B.A. in Social Work and Psychology. She is currently a student at the University of Maryland School of Social Work where she is pursuing her MSW.

Julia Toscano supports the SAFE Center as the Senior Economic Empowerment Specialist. Julia has over 10 years of experience in community development, working both nationally and abroad. Julia comes to the SAFE Center after working as a community school coordinator in Baltimore. In this role, she built partnerships with local government agencies and non-profits to offer programs and resources to students and school families. She also connected families to public benefits and other social services. Julia has six years of experience in international development. She worked for the Inter-American Foundation, a US government agency, supporting the management and delivery of grant funding to grassroots organizations across Latin America. Julia served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, partnering with local leaders to design and implement a sanitation project and provide relevant training for community members. Julia earned her master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and her bachelor’s degree in Human Services from Endicott College.

Julie Resendiz, LMSW, supports the SAFE Center Behavioral Health team as a Bilingual Therapist. Her professional experience includes an internship at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where she provided ongoing therapy for active service military members to address PTSD, Military Sexual Trauma, family and relationship issues, and readjustment issues. Most recently, Julie worked for the Primary Care Coalition as a Behavioral Health Care Manager, providing short-term therapy and case management services at two community clinics in Montgomery County: Proyecto Salud and The Muslim Community Center. She graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore with a Masters in Social Work in 2021.

Karina Velasco is a bilingual licensed bachelor level social worker. Karina has extensive outreach, recruitment, and advocacy experience working with Latino youth and families. Karina has worked with the immigrant community in different capacities over the past decade, beginning with her work as a youth leader with CASA de Maryland helping bring change and educational opportunities for undocumented students through the passage of the Maryland Dream Act. She also served as the Outreach Specialist and later Case Manager for the Adelante youth program at the Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers (MMYC) in Langley Park, MD. Karina has most recently worked with unaccompanied minors and victims of human trafficking, providing home assessments and case management services through Bethany Christian Services. Additionally, Karina worked with CASA de Maryland as a Community Youth Organizer where she led and encouraged young adults to take part of community change and support initiatives in immigration, health, and education.  Ms. Velasco received dual-associate degrees in General Studies and Mental Health from Montgomery College in 2013 and later earned Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2017.

Katarina “Katy” Gomez, Esq. is an Immigration Attorney at the SAFE Center. Prior to joining the SAFE Center, Katy was a Senior Attorney with the Detained Children’s Program at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights (formerly known as CAIR Coalition). At Amica, Katy led a team in providing Know Your Rights presentations and legal screenings to newly arrived unaccompanied minors under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in Virginia. She also represented minors released in the DMV area in immigration and custody matters, including asylum and SIJS. Throughout law school, Katy interned with various nonprofit organizations, including Americans for Immigrant Justice, RAICES, the Legal Aid Society of NY, and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

Katy earned her JD from the University of Miami School of Law and her BA in Political Science from Florida State University. She is a member of the Maryland bar and fluent in Spanish.

Kinicki Hughes supports the SAFE Center as a Senior Housing Services Specialist, a role in which she leads the development of our housing advocacy and services program, aimed at helping survivors secure safe housing or shelter. With over 10 years of experience working in residential programs with survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence, and a background in public health and advocacy, Kinicki is committed to improving the lives of survivors through comprehensive support services.

Most recently, Kinicki worked with the District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH) as both a Director of Residential Programs and an Advance Practice Provider, offering coaching and technical assistance to staff, delivering trauma-informed care for survivors, and overseeing strategic initiatives and partnerships to enhance safe housing programs. Before her time at DASH, she served as a Residential Director and Victim Advocate at HopeWorks of Howard County, and coordinated services for individuals living with HIV in roles at both the Baltimore City Health Department and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).

Kinicki is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Social Work at Troy University.

Majaella Ruden is a Policy and Programs Advisor to the Director of the University of Maryland SAFE Center for Human Trafficking Survivors. Majaella plays an important role in the SAFE Center’s labor trafficking prevention work and labor rights collaborations in Maryland. She works with the SAFE Center’s leadership team to build community and business partnerships as well as to identify and apply for potential funding opportunities. Majaella is leading outreach to local embassies and consulates in the Washington D.C. metropolitan region as part of the SAFE Center’s community outreach and prevention work. She also works on a number of policy issues that inform the SAFE Center’s policy advocacy and supervises graduate and undergraduate student research projects. Majaella earned her Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her Bachelor’s degree in Peace and Justice Studies from Wellesley College.

Melany Castro is a Senior Data Program Specialist for the SAFE Center. Prior to joining the SAFE Center, Melany worked as a Senior Paralegal with Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition where she provided Know Your Rights presentations, legal screenings, and direct services to children in the Office for Refugee Resettlement facilities in Maryland and Virginia. She also served as a database administrator where she managed technical support needs, data reporting and analytics, and staff education on data storage best practices and PII protection. Before working at the CAIR Coalition, Melany worked for Microsoft as an IT support specialist, with over eight years of experience in the information technology industry. She also served as the Information Technology Industry Council’s Latin America Global Policy Graduate Fellow, where she drafted recommendations for stakeholders that advanced market access and innovative capacities for ICT companies in Latin America.

Melany holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Affairs from Cleveland State University. In May of 2020 she graduated from the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies Masters program, specializing in security and development, at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Neil Mallon, LCSW-C is a clinical social worker with The Institute for Innovation & Implementation at the University of Maryland, School of Social Work and a clinical field instructor and advisor to the University of Maryland SAFE Center. Mr. Mallon has over ten years of clinical and macro social work practice experience within a variety of service settings, including child welfare, mental health, immigration, staff training/development, research and evaluation. In his current role at The Institute, Mr. Mallon works extensively with Maryland’s public and private child welfare providers to support the implementation and integration of a functional assessment tool to support decision making, quality improvement initiatives, and outcomes monitoring for youth and families served by the state’s child welfare systems. He is also the clinical field instructor for social work student interns at the SAFE Center and advisor for case management related policies and practice protocols. Mr. Mallon has assisted in the development of the Center’s trauma-informed and survivor-centered approach to practice and serves as a liaison to the State’s public and private child serving systems to support cross system collaboration in service delivery for domestic minor victims of trafficking. Mr. Mallon earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Towson University and a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Shoshanna Allaire is an Office Manager working with the SAFE Center and the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB). She earned an associate degree in Finance in 2017, an associate degree in Business Administration, Management, and Operations in 2018, and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from University Maryland Global Campus in 2021. Ms. Allaire’s professional background includes working in various supporting roles within University System of Maryland universities as well as Howard Community College. She has volunteered on numerous committees including College Counsel, the Executive Support Group, the Middle States Periodic Review, the Safe Zone, the Power of Two, and managed the Giving Tree for several years.

Sophie Aron joined the SAFE Center staff in June, 2019 as a Research and Program Coordinator. In this role she will help develop and support the SAFE Center’s state and local task force work, public health research and program implementation, and survivor leadership programming. She also works to support the Center’s crisis intervention team. Before joining the SAFE Center in her current role, Ms. Aron interned for a year at the Center in a similar capacity while pursuing her Masters in Social Work. She has also completed an internship with social workers at a D.C. charter school and served a year of AmeriCorps conducting conflict mediation in Montgomery County middle and high schools. Ms. Aron has spent a year in India, Vietnam, South Africa, and Argentina studying healthcare systems and how trauma affects access to public healthcare systems. Ms. Aron earned her Masters in Social Work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and her BA in Anthropology from Hamilton College.

Susan Wallendorf, MS, supports the SAFE Center as a Case Manager. Ms. Wallendorf received a BA from the University of Baltimore in 2019, where she majored in Human Services Administration, with a Victim Studies minor. She went on to receive her master’s in Criminal Justice from the University of Baltimore in 2021, where she also earned a trauma-informed care certificate as part of her studies. Ms. Wallendorf has a professional background in victim assistance and case management and has worked in direct services in both the public and private sectors, including roles with the Baltimore County Health Department and the University of Baltimore’s Second Chance College Program. Her past work has focused on program coordination, victim services and peer recovery, among other areas. She has undergone extensive training in victim assistance, including completion of the Roper Victim Assistance Academy of Maryland, which provides participants with an advocacy-based overview of victimology, victim rights, and victim assistance.

Tanejah Jones, MSW, LCSW joined the SAFE Center as a Prevention Social Worker in September, 2020. Tanejah’s primary role is to help develop, implement and manage the Prevention Project that will be presented in high schools within Prince George’s County. In addition to the prevention project, she is also providing clinical, crisis intervention, and individual and group therapy services at the Center. Ms. Jones completed a Master’s degree Clinical Social Work from Simmons University in Boston, MA. During her time at Simmons she interned with Dove, Inc., a community domestic violence organization as an outreach and education specialist. Her role was to go into the community, local middle schools and high schools to present about domestic violence and the warning signs of an abusive relationship. Additionally, she interned at the Centers for Violence Prevention and Recovery (CVPR) at Beth Israel Medical Center working with survivors of domestic violence, community violence, sexual assaults, and human trafficking. At CVPR she also worked one-on-one and facilitated groups with survivors of violence using trauma-informed care. Tanejah has a passion for prevention work and enjoys working within the community.