We are very lucky to have Katharine Alonzoas the public defender on our Mental Health Court team.
Katie was born in beautiful (but chilly)Vermont, but spent her childhood in sunny Florida. She grew up in Brevard county and attended Florida State University for her undergraduate degree. She graduated wither Juris Doctorate from the University of Florida.
Katie has always been passionate about defending clients, and started interning for the public defender’s office as a law student. Her entire career has been dedicated to the public defender’s office. She loves her work at the PD’s office because it has given, and continues to give her the opportunity to help people through very difficult situations.
She is most proud of her work in creating and implementing the mental health courts in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit.
In her personal life, Katie is really busy! Katie is married with two adult children. Her oldest child just graduated from college and her second child is a student at UCF. Katie and her family love to travel. Their vacations are jammed packed as they want to see as much as they can. She also said that they love to explore and don’t generally travel to the same place twice. Her family’s passion for travel started wither daughter’s Make a Wish Trip to Paris. Katie described it as a “perfect” trip. Katie’s favorite trip is “always the next one.” She said that she loves to have something to look forward to. Her motto in life is “everything happens for a reason” and that is absolutely true in travel!
When she isn’t traveling, Katie can be found reading or doing projects. She said that with “YouTube” you can teach yourself anything! She went through a period wherein she taught herself how to sew. Now, she is into woodworking, and is now creating a woodworking shop in her new house.
We are proud and honored to have Katie as a part of our team!
We would like to highlight and thank the employers that partner with us to hire our program’s participants. Through these employment opportunities, the lives and progress of our participants are significantly impacted in a positive manner. Thanks to your support they are able to learn, obtain important life skills, support themselves, be productive, feel that they are able to accomplish the goals they set for themselves, and see that they belong.
THANK YOU!
Our Mental Health Court team would like to thank the following members of the community for attending the graduation on December 9th, 2021 and for supporting our program and its participants:
- Dawn Boulding, 19th Judicial Circuit
- Eula Clarke, Stuart Mayor
- Stephen Quintyne, Coral Shores CEO
- Michelle Miller, Human Services Administrator
We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you and hope you continue to attend. Thank you!
PROGRAM SNAPSHOT
- There are currently80 participants enrolled with a total of 95 cases.
- 39 are misdemeanors, and 41 are felonies.
- Since January of 2021,53 new participants have entered our program.
- We have partnerships for employment with 3 organizations.
- 32 of the participants are currently employed.
- 64 have been approved for or receive some type of benefit or assistance.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- We had our largest graduation class ever with 11 Mental Health Court graduates!
- Our team completed the Community of Practice by the Council of State Government’s Justice Center.
- Some of our team members spoke to TCPalm about the importance of de-stigmatizing mental health, supporting our Mental Health Court program, and shared with them what our participants would like to see covered on the news.
- Our team was invited to attend the NAMI Townhall on Mental Health where we participated and discussed our program.
LASTLY…
- Our team and our program participants would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
- Our next Mental Health Court graduation will be on March 24th, 2022!
