Community Outreach Services of the Johnson County Department of Corrections

Erin and Jodi join our weekly meeting to discuss how the JOCO Dept of Corrections supports the local community through volunteering and program coordination.

Erin has worked for the Johnson County Department of Corrections for 14 years and has served in a few capacities, including a Probation Officer and Substance Abuse Counselor.  Her current position, that she's held for the last 5 years, is the Volunteers & Programs Coordinator.  She would describe her position as the “fun one of Corrections” because she gets to work with their amazing community providing resources for their clients and planning family and community events.  She loves working with the clients they serve because she wholeheartedly believes people can change.  It’s hard and they have to believe in them and support them, but they see it happen time and time again and it’s those success stories that help them last in this field. 

Jodi has worked for the Johnson County Juvenile Services Center for the past 18 years. She has been in a supervisory capacity for the last 16 years and is currently the Administrative Supervisor. She directly supervises the admissions and specialty posts for the JSC. Erin Moeder and Jodi have worked together the last few years as co-chairs of the Activities Planning Team at the Juvenile Services Center. When Erin was contacted by UnCover KC to work on a partnership to involve our youth in giving back to their communities, Jodi jumped at the chance to work on this project with her. She has worked with juvenile offenders for over 21 years now. What she has learned during this time is that the youth that they serve in detention are not all that different than the youth that are our own children, nieces, nephews, and neighbor’s kids. They have made a mistake that has gotten them in contact with law enforcement and that could have real world consequences for their actions. Having said that, we ALL have the capacity to learn, grow, and develop as humans and we should be afforded that opportunity to do so. Oftentimes, these kiddos just need someone to believe that they can be successful and that can be there to help them to develop the skills they need to achieve their goals.