Martin County Mental Health Court

Newsletter; Volume 2, Issue 1

Spotlight on Our Case Manager, Yuri Parraga. We are very lucky to have Yuri Parraga as the Case Manager on our Mental Health Court team.

Yuri was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where she lived until she was seven. Thereafter, she lived in Puerto Rico until age 15, when she moved to sunny Florida. Yuri got a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a minor in political science in 2017 from Turabo University in Puerto Rico. Thereafter, she got her Master’s degree in psychology from Walden University in2019. She always knew that she wanted to work in a field which linked both psychology and the law.

Yuri developed her interest in psychology her junior year of high school when she took a psychology course and her teacher asked the class to build a brain out of candy. Each piece of candy represented apart of the brain; the class discussed the effects of moving or changing pieces of the candy. That clever assignment inspired Yuri to be our Case Manager – Kudos to her teacher!

Yuri returned to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 to get her Master’s Degree. She first worked for Coral Shores and then worked with New Horizons and the Martin County Mental Health Court. She has been part of the Martin County Mental Health Court team since 2018. Yuri loves her job because she loves being able to help people and feels blessed that she can make difference in helping our clients make good choices.

As we all know, Yuri is dedicated to her job and the success of the Mental Health Court program and can often be found working. However, in her rare spare time, Yuri loves to run with her new puppy, Skye. When she isn’t working, or running with Skye, she’s in her house watching Real Madrid Soccer.

We are proud and honored to have Yuri as a leader of our team!

HIGHLIGHTS

Project Lift partnered up with employers in our community to develop job coaching and life skills building boot camps. Many of our participants were part of the A1Truss and Marine Industries Association of the Treasure Coast boot camps and successfully completed them!

Lift held their graduation for young adults obtaining their high school diplomas in March. We are proud of the Mental Health Court participant(s) that were able to accomplish this goal and are grateful for Project Lift and their community efforts.

Alpha Pharmacy opened in Martin County to provide our participants with behavioral health focused and accessible medication and supplies. Alpha Pharmacy has played an instrumental role in the success of our program participants by filling the gaps in access to medication.

THANK YOU!

Our Mental Health Court team would like to thank the following members of our community for attending the graduation on March 24th, 2022 and for supporting our program and its participants:

Carolyn Timmann, Martin County Clerk of Court

Joseph Cracchiola, Martin County Probation

Lisa Nebbeling, Martin County Probation

Michelle Miller, Human Services Administrator

We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you and hope you continue to attend. Thank you!

We would also like to thank Dave Aronberg from the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office for joining us on March 3rd, 2022 to observe our court.

Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to Wendy Parent, the 19th Judicial Circuit, the Office of the State Courts Administrator, and Southeast Florida Behavioral Health Network for their support. It is because of your support that we can continue to rehabilitate, divert, and make a positive, long-lasting impact in the lives of our program participants.