Parental Incarceration & Children's Human Rights Symposium

Pick up your program and learn more about the day.

Kiwanis Vilella is a nationally recognized advocate in the areas of both substance use disorders and violence interruption. Kiwanis currently assists in running the Metro Youth Diversion Center, managing a team that works directly with youth on the streets of Minneapolis with the goal of reducing justice involvement and offering alternatives to incarceration. Kiwanis has lived experience with incarceration and uses this to create a bridge between himself and the communities he works with. Kiwanis also has 13 years of recovery behind him, and, as part of his role in street outreach, works tirelessly to connect people with treatment options and peer support. He is a dedicated father to his sons Quincy and Ervin. 

Carrie Booth Walling is director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota—a hub of interdisciplinary research, teaching, and community outreach in the field of human rights. Walling is director of Graduate Studies for the Graduate Minor in Human Rights, a faculty member in the Institute for Global Studies, and affiliated faculty at the Humphrey School for Public Affairs and the University of Minnesota Law School. Walling is co-convener of the Parental Incarceration & Children’s Human Rights community-based participatory research project and is a certified instructor for the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program which brings incarcerated and non-incarcerated people together to study justice behind prison walls.

Sheila Kiscaden is a member of Minnesota’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee through which she co-chairs the Children of Incarcerated Parents Committee. A recently retired Olmsted County commissioner, Sheila has had a long public service career as a human services planner, program manager, and consultant as well as four terms in the Minnesota Senate. She earned master’s degrees from the University of Southern California and Sussex University. 

Sophia Lackens is a second-year master's student at the Humphrey School studying human rights with a focus on carceral policy. She holds a graduate certificate in community leadership from the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. She has previous experience as a strategic communications specialist, a graduate research assistant under Dr. Tricia Olsen, and a teaching assistant in the Department of Sociology. She enjoys reading, traveling, and aviation.

Nataya Paisley is a master of human rights candidate at the University of Minnesota, passionate about racial justice, intersectionality, and transformative approaches to criminal legal reform. With experience in community advocacy, policy research, and restorative justice, she bridges academia and lived experience to uplift Black voices and drive systemic change.

Bridget Sabo is currently a senior attorney in the Parent Representation Division of Hennepin County Adult Representation Services (ARS) where she defends parents against child protection legal actions. Before joining ARS, Bridget worked at the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis as a juvenile defense attorney and restorative justice facilitator. She has also worked as a permanency specialist at Ampersand Families where she sought adoptive families for older youth whose parental rights had been terminated. Bridget was an appellate public defender for 12 years and spent two years as a staff attorney at the Great North Innocence Project. She began her legal career in general litigation at what is now Faegre Drinker. Bridget values a holistic model of representation that seeks to empower clients by providing understandable information and zealous advocacy. 

Moira Villiard (pronounced “Miri”) is a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer from the Fond du Lac Reservation in Cloquet, MN. Through murals, digital media, exhibits, and public art, she uplifts underrepresented stories, explores the nuance of historical community intersections, and promotes healing spaces. Her recent projects of note include the Chief Buffalo Memorial and Waiting for Beds exhibit. A passionate arts educator, she emphasizes collaboration and access in her work. Miri is currently a Bush Fellow and a master of human rights student at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Dr. Ebony Ruhland received her Ph.D. from the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota and is an associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. Her research focuses on how criminal justice policies and practices impact individuals, families, and communities. At the symposium, Dr. Ruhland will frame the issue of parental incarceration, speak to its impact on children, and discuss the importance of carefully evaluating policy proposals.

Ciera Hansen is in her final semester of completing her master’s of human rights. She opted for a self-design concentration in law, justice, and accountability. She currently works as a research assistant under Tricia Olsen, researching corporate human rights abuses. Before attending the University of Minnesota, she received her bachelor of arts in social work and psychology at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. Ciera has spent time working as a social worker liaison within the Public Defender’s Office and at domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters as an advocate. She is passionate about women's and children’s rights and environmental justice.

Andrew (Drew) Sonnenburg graduated from Minnesota State University-Mankato with a bachelor of science degree in psychology with minors in both corrections and criminal justice, respectively. He is a second-year master of human rights candidate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs with a concentration in crime, law, and justice and a particular focus on the carceral state. He hopes to use his education and experience to not only advocate for the victims of the carceral state and the criminal-legal system but advocate for policy reforms as well. In addition to a capstone project about pregnancy in prisons, he is also involved in the planning and facilitation of this Parental Incarceration and Human Rights symposium that CIC is coordinating with the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Program.

Micah Winters is a 2L at the University of Minnesota Law School. He came to law school in 2023 after completing graduate studies in English literature and spending five years working in various supply chain roles in a global industrial manufacturing corporation. Micah’s professional interests involve the protection and expansion of international legal structures guarding human rights in the digital space for communities at risk of rights violations by malign state and private actors. He will spend this summer in New York City in a legal internship with Access Now, a major international human and digital rights organization.

McKenna Haas is a recent master’s graduate from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health with focuses on environmental health, climate change, and global public health. She currently works as an environmental health specialist with Ramsey County Public Health. McKenna started working with CIC in the spring of 2021 as an intern, has helped produce the international prison nursery podcast, and is now an advisory board member. Her personal experience with parental and familial incarceration helps to fuel her commitment to and compassion towards children impacted by caregiver incarceration as well as her passion for health and well-being advocacy.

Deneal Trueblood-Lynch was released from incarceration in 2014 and works as a motivational speaker, outreach advocate, and reentry facilitator at Goodwill Easter Seals of Minnesota. After reentry, Deneal earned her associate’s degree in theater arts from Minneapolis Community and Technical College and her bachelor’s degree in theater arts from Metro State University. Deneal’s growing experience in the theater industry encouraged her to write her own play, SECRETS. Deneal not only continues to build upon her own success story but also provides hope to those reentering the community through her many initiatives aimed at giving a voice to those who need to be heard most. 

Nedreonnea Trueblood completed her high school diploma at Park Center High School in 2015. She served on the Student Youth for Congress, where she addressed community-related youth issues in education and community. She attended Augsburg College and Avio Institutions of the Arts, where she completed her certification in office support and medical coding and billing. Her desire to protect herself and others led her into security training. Currently, she is seeking employment as a flight attendant. 

Kiwanis Vilella is a nationally recognized advocate in the areas of both substance use disorders and violence interruption. Kiwanis currently assists in running the Metro Youth Diversion Center, managing a team that works directly with youth on the streets of Minneapolis with the goal of reducing justice involvement and offering alternatives to incarceration. Kiwanis has lived experience with incarceration and uses this to create a bridge between himself and the communities he works with. Kiwanis also has 16 years of recovery behind him, and, as part of his role in street outreach, works tirelessly to connect people with treatment options and peer support. He is a dedicated father to his sons Quincy and Ervin. 

Tina Williams is a single mother of three and the manager of AllSquare restaurant, a social enterprise that’s healing the harms that have been created through mass incarceration. Tina has firsthand experience with the huge divide regarding children of Incarcerated caregivers. She has had to endure the obstacles of parenting from the inside and the barriers of continuing the bond with her children after returning home. Tina has a strong passion for advocating for new policies to lessen the trauma put on children while going through the incarceration period and thereafter. 

Boxed lunches will be available outside Mondale 25. 

Lori Timlin has been the parenting coordinator at the MN Correctional Facility at Shakopee since 2011. She also co-facilitates the Healthy Start Conditional Release Program for pregnant and postpartum incarcerated women. Ms. Timlin has a degree in criminal justice from Bemidji State University and has worked primarily in juvenile probation in a variety of counties since 1984. For six years, she also worked in domestic relations in Ramsey County, providing custody and parenting time mediation and evaluation.

Kiwanis Vilella is a nationally recognized advocate in the areas of both substance use disorders and violence interruption. Kiwanis currently assists in running the Metro Youth Diversion Center, managing a team that works directly with youth on the streets of Minneapolis with the goal of reducing justice involvement and offering alternatives to incarceration. Kiwanis has lived experience with incarceration and uses this to create a bridge between himself and the communities he works with. Kiwanis also has 16 years of recovery behind him, and, as part of his role in street outreach, works tirelessly to connect people with treatment options and peer support. He is a dedicated father to his sons Quincy and Ervin. 

Moira Villiard (pronounced “Miri”) is a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer from the Fond du Lac Reservation in Cloquet, MN. Through murals, digital media, exhibits, and public art, she uplifts underrepresented stories, explores the nuance of historical community intersections, and promotes healing spaces. Her recent projects of note include the Chief Buffalo Memorial and Waiting for Beds exhibit. A passionate arts educator, she emphasizes collaboration and access in her work. Miri is currently a Bush Fellow and a master of human rights student at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Tina Williams is a single mother of three and the manager of AllSquare restaurant, a social enterprise that’s healing the harms that have been created through mass incarceration. Tina has firsthand experience with the huge divide regarding children of Incarcerated caregivers. She has had to endure the obstacles of parenting from the inside and the barriers of continuing the bond with her children after returning home. Tina has a strong passion for advocating for new policies to lessen the trauma put on children while going through the incarceration period and thereafter. 

Bonni Fredrikson has worked at the Hennepin County Adult Correctional Facility (ACF) for over 30 years. She has been able to see, experience, and be a part of the many changes that have taken place in a facility that went from very limited opportunities for residents to an environment that values and focuses on ways to prepare residents for return to their communities and families. One of the projects she leads is working with a federal grant to bring back contact visiting for not only mothers at the ACF, but also fathers for the first time in the history of the facility.
 

Katie Benson, LISW – M.S.W., George Warren Brown School of Social Work; B.S., University of Wisconsin – Madison. Katie has spent the past decade working with individuals impacted by mental health issues, poverty, and chemical dependency through direct care and treatment, policy work and advocacy, as well as the court system. She has presented at local and national CLE programs and is a co-owner of MN Mitigation Services, a private agency providing mitigation services in state and federal courts in MN. Katie has previously worked in the Ramsey County Public Defender Office, Stearns County Human Services – Child Protection Division, and several mental health organizations.

Rachel Huberty is from Bloomington, Minnesota, and will be graduating this May with an undergraduate degree in both history and political science from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. This summer, she will begin a 13-month accelerated Master of Education and teachers licensure program for social studies education also at UMN-TC. She joined this project due to her parallel passion for public policy and a strong interest in understanding the experiences future students would bring to the classroom—along with a desire to support their families in the present. 

Judge Mark J. Kappelhoff is a District Court Judge on the Fourth Judicial District Court in Hennepin County, where he serves as the Assistant Chief of the Court and previously served as the Presiding Judge of Juvenile Court. He also is a member of the Hennepin County District Court’s Equal Justice Committee and represents Hennepin County District Court on the State-Wide Committee on Equality and Justice. Before being appointed to the bench, Judge Kappelhoff was an Associate Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he Directed the Criminal Justice Clinic.

Kelley Leaf (She/Her/Hers) is currently a practicum coordinator/teaching specialist at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work where she has been for three years. Prior to that, she worked for 19 years as a guardian ad litem coordinator in Hennepin County for the State of Minnesota Guardian ad Litem Board. Kelley received her MSW from the University of Minnesota School of Social Work in 2012. Her current practice interests include supervision and organizational structure, social work education, and general macro-practice social work. 

Bridget Sabo is currently a senior attorney in the Parent Representation Division of Hennepin County Adult Representation Services (ARS) where she defends parents against child protection legal actions. Before joining ARS, Bridget worked at the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis as a juvenile defense attorney and restorative justice facilitator. She has also worked as a permanency specialist at Ampersand Families where she sought adoptive families for older youth whose parental rights had been terminated. Bridget was an appellate public defender for 12 years and spent two years as a staff attorney at the Great North Innocence Project. She began her legal career in general litigation at what is now Faegre Drinker. Bridget values a holistic model of representation that seeks to empower clients by providing understandable information and zealous advocacy.  

Latonya Reeves is a career probation officer in the Adult Probation Supervision Services Division of the Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation in Hennepin County and the president of the American Federal of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 5 Local 552 Probation and Parole Bargaining Unit. Latonya was the recipient of the Rick Scott Political Activism Award in 2019 from the MN AFL-CIO/AFSMCE Council 5 and serves as chair of the Minneapolis Community Commission on Police Oversight. She is passionate about legislative work to implement change in her community and building on the practices of racial disparity reduction and best practices in criminal justice.

Shayla Russell received her MS in mental health counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Stout and began her career as a wraparound care coordinator for Milwaukee County, Wisconsin serving children with severe and persistent mental illness involved in the juvenile justice system. She was a treatment court coordinator for over 10 years, and has coordinated mental health courts, substance abuse courts, DWI courts, and veterans courts, and is currently the treatment courts program specialist within the Minnesota Judicial Branch, focusing on implementing and expanding treatment courts throughout the state of Minnesota.

Rachel Zurek serves as a treatment court coordinator in Minnesota’s Fifth Judicial District, where she oversees specialty courts within the child protection and criminal court systems across Blue Earth, Brown, and Nicollet counties. She facilitates court operations, ensuring that individuals and families receive comprehensive, evidence-based interventions tailored to their needs. Before her work in treatment courts, Rachel spent over a decade improving sentencing outcomes for youth and adults involved in juvenile and criminal court through her advocacy as a dispositional advisor at the Public Defender’s Office. Rachel earned her master’s degree in social work from the University of Minnesota.

Danielle Matthias is a senior organizer at MN Freedom Fund and a passionate community leader from the Twin Cities. With a background in parent-led programming, she focuses on strengthening family foundations, expanding support systems, and promoting family well-being. Danielle currently leads a court observation program focused on bringing transparency to arraignment hearings in the Twin Cities.

Joshua Page is the Beverly and Richard Fink Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officer Unions in California, and co-author of Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle over Criminal Justice and Legal Plunder: The Predatory Dimensions of Criminal Justice (Summer 2025). Page is a member of the Minnesota Justice Research Center’s Research Steering Committee, and he is the co-author of MNJRC’s recent report, Toward Safety, Liberty, and Equity: A Community-Centered Framework for Redesigning Minnesota’s Pretrial System.

Julie Matonich is a co-instructor of the Parental Incarceration and Children's Human Rights seminar. She is a practicing attorney and co-founder and board president of Children of Incarcerated Caregivers (CIC). She co-directs CIC's Prison Nursery Project, which hosts a global network of nonprofit organizations and academic researchers who address issues related to children living in prisons with their incarcerated parents throughout the world. She also serves as a member of the Minnesota Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee (JJAC) Children of Incarcerated Parents Subcommittee.

Kiwanis Vilella is a nationally recognized advocate in the areas of both substance use disorders and violence interruption. Kiwanis currently assists in running the Metro Youth Diversion Center, managing a team that works directly with youth on the streets of Minneapolis with the goal of reducing justice involvement and offering alternatives to incarceration. Kiwanis has lived experience with incarceration and uses this to create a bridge between himself and the communities he works with. Kiwanis also has 16 years of recovery behind him, and, as part of his role in street outreach, works tirelessly to connect people with treatment options and peer support. He is a dedicated father to his sons Quincy and Ervin. 

Emily Baxter is an attorney, activist, and photographer, working with individuals, families, communities, and national organizations to highlight injustices and amplify the voices and stories of people most impacted by our criminal legal system. She is the founder and executive director of We Are All Criminals (WAAC), a photo and story-based catalyst for conversations about race, class, privilege, and punishment. It has been said that mass incarceration is dependent upon the ignoring and erasure of the human beings we cage. SEEN @ WAM, an exhibit born out of a WAAC prison poetry and portrait project, challenges that.

Amelious N. Whyte, Jr., a double Gopher with a master’s and doctorate degree from the University of Minnesota, is originally from Brooklyn, NY, and currently serves as the interim director for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for the College of Liberal Arts (he served as the assistant dean for diversity, equity & inclusion and public engagement before becoming the interim director). He has worked at the University of Minnesota in several roles over the years in student affairs and governance. He is an active community volunteer and currently serves as a board member of the Weisman Art Museum and previously served as the board chair.