After attending a screening of Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story at Penn State Abington, I left with more questions than answers. The evening included a live virtual conversation with Cyntoia Brown Long and sparked reflections on justice, trauma, consent, and the ways people can grow beyond the worst moments of their lives. It also brought back personal memories from my own teenage years working in a juvenile detention center and the questions I carried then about why some kids ended up behind locked doors while others did not.

There’s a quiet kind of isolation that comes with being a therapist. So much of what we carry can’t be shared. Through Worthwhile and Words of Worth, that finally changed for me. For the first time, my family, my work, and my community are coming together in a way that feels meaningful, connected, and long overdue.