Staff

Leadership:

Moki Macias, Executive Director

Denise White, Deputy Director

Farah Witt, Director of Finance

Toni Jackson, Director of Community Response

Letisha Hemanes McCall, Director of Social Services

Tamia Dame, Director of Communications

Community Response Team:

Annette Johnson, Community Response Supervisor

Jason Howell, Community Response Supervisor

Referral Coordinators:

Devon Claridge
Takira Williams

Community Responders:

Annette Johnson

Anthony Benton
Ash DeSilva
Ashauni Frazier
Bec Cranford
Christian Kelly
Elizabeth Pittenger
Michael White
Kasali Obanoyen
Rachiim McFarlane

Community Engagement Team:

Kayla Smith, Community Engagement & Training Manager

Raychell Green, Training Coordinator

Community Engagement Specialists:

A’Shiah Rachel
Alexsis Simmons
Samuelle Walker

Care Navigation Team:

Angera Hardge, Care Navigation Supervisor

Leni Garner, Care Navigator Supervisor

Erice Monteiro, Legal Navigation Manager

Will Baskin, Living Room Peer Advocate

Care Navigators:

Ashlee Heibel
Cameron Johnson
Darci Jaret
Diamante Hayes
D’Neise Robinson
Drew Umberger
Elisha Montoya
Gene Walls
Marquasha Zanders
Reese Ward
Terry Thompson
Tinola Payne
Traci Crawford
Victoria Hull

Street Wellness Enhancement & Engagement Team (SWEET)

Lori Rush, SWEET Supervisor
Emma Weinstein-Levey, SWEET Clinical Advocate
Gar Hogan, SWEET Peer Advocate
Jamal Smith, SWEET Peer Advocate
Kareem Osborne, SWEET Clinical Advocate
LaShonda McDowell, SWEET Clinical Advocate
Mark “Bean” Peters, SWEET Peer Advocate

Operations Team:

Jasmine Moore, Site Operations Manager

Stacy Piper, Operations Coordinator

History

The PAD Initiative was born out of the work and vision of Atlantans directly impacted by policing and incarceration and committed to a new approach to community safety and wellness.

2013

Under the leadership of queer and trans people of color, Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaPCO) was formed and lead a grassroots organizing campaign to defeat a banishment ordinance targeting sex workers in Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood. SNaPCO’s founding organizations, including Racial Justice Action Center, Women on the Rise, LaGender, and Trans(forming), rallied a broad coalition of Atlantans to champion criminal justice reform and propose more effective approaches to public safety.

2015

Community leaders, legal system partners, and elected officials traveled to Seattle to learn about Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) and Atlanta City Council and Fulton County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to establish the PAD Design Team.

2016

The PAD Design Team, which included representatives from local criminal justice agencies, local governments, neighborhood and faith leaders, and social services providers, launched an 18-month process to design the local pilot of a diversion and care navigation strategy, based on the LEAD model.

2017

PAD began accepting diversions in October 2017 in four Atlanta Police Department beats. In 2018, the Atlanta Police Department diverted 69 people, and by 2019 expanded to 28 beats.

2019

PAD was awarded the Civic Impact Award for Government Innovation by the Center for Civic Innovation. PAD successfully completed the two-year pilot, diverting 150 people and providing harm reduction based case management, housing, transportation, food assistance, and linkage to care that supported improvements in participant and community quality of life.

2020

The LEAD Bureau selected PAD to serve as one of seven sites nationally for the LEAD Proof of Concept Cohort, as a model site for Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion.

Atlanta City Council unanimously approved a substantial funding increase to expand PAD citywide.

PAD lead a design process for the expansion into Community Response Services with ATL311. We studied 3.5 years of 911 call data, co-hosted 3 virtual listening sessions with 15 other organizations, surveyed City of Atlanta residents, and convened six stakeholder working groups.

PAD changed our name to the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative. New name, still PAD.

2021

In partnership with the City of Atlanta’s non-emergency 311 city services line, PAD launches Community Response Services for quality of life concerns related to mental health, substance use, or extreme poverty. By summer 2021, Community Response Services expand to be citywide.

Pre-Arrest Diversion Services also expand to include MARTA police officers and APD officers across Atlanta.

Members of Solutions not Punishment Collaborative at City Hall, 2015

Board of Directors

Chris Johnson

Clinton Deveaux, Chair

Iffat Muhammad Walker, Treasurer

James Alexander

Joshua Noblitt

Marilynn Winn

Salisha A. Evans

Sara Toering

Staci Fox

Vanessa Hickey-Gales

“PAD gives me the opportunity to advocate for more humane responses.“

"During 30 years on the Municipal Court, it became clear to me that many defendants were brought before me because of their poverty, their homelessness, their mental health status or their addiction. Their arrests were less about crime than about their circumstances. These are issues that belong in the health and social justice systems of our communities rather than the criminal justice system. PAD gives me the opportunity to advocate for more humane responses to these concerns."