James Jensen

If you’re going to have a long, diverse career — say, one lasting nearly 50 years that includes tenures at hospitals and one of the country’s most well-known jails — it helps to have a solid educational foundation. For James Jensen, that meant attending the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.

“The field of mental health and correctional mental health has evolved over time for social workers,” Jensen says. “The workforce is clearly more diverse and inclusive. Correctional facilities are now primary and sometimes the largest mental health provider in an area. There is now a closer intersection of homelessness, mental health, substance use, and criminal justice involvement. Plus, the role of technology — from computerized medical records to tele-behavioral health initiatives — has impacted social workers and has created new opportunities for practice. Staff continue to face sometimes daunting challenges and continue to be flexible and use their skills in a variety of ways.”

Jensen received his Bachelor's degree in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, New York State. In 1969, after graduation, he found a job with Erie County’s Child Welfare Department as a caseworker, where he stayed until leaving for Chicago in 1970. He worked with kids who were adjudicated, neglected, or abused, and part of the job was to remove them from dangerous homes. He also testified in court on these cases a few times, and felt like he didn’t quite have the background or expertise to best meet the challenge.

“I liked working with people,” Jensen says. “But I realized that if I was going to go anyplace, I probably needed to get a master's degree.”

He entered what’s now the Crown Family School, (it was called the School of Social Service Administration then), with a strong understanding of cultural relativity and ethnocentrism, but less so of behavioral issues. He was motivated, he says, but a little green, and the program filled gaps in his knowledge. Jensen can rattle off numerous professors who influenced him (Phil Hovda, Mary Louise Somers, Anita Pernell), and one in particular — Charles Shireman — who may have nudged him toward his future. Shireman was an expert in the juvenile justice system and urged Jensen to go into corrections as a social worker. While he initially didn’t enter corrections, Jensen would eventually work in mental health programs at Rikers Island (the New York City Department of corrections) for 35 years.

“When I graduated, I felt like I had a very good foundation, I had a framework about how to look at things,” Jensen says. “I commented once on LinkedIn that there's not a day that goes by that I have not thought back about Chicago. That speaks to the meaningfulness of it for me, and how it's helped me, and in my career and my personal life.”

After graduating from the program in 1972, Jensen Moved to Philadelphia where he worked at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for one year. He then returned to Buffalo and worked at a United Way agency called Child and Family Services for about five years, first doing evaluations and then doing group and individual therapy, suicide and violence risk assessments.

Jensen and his wife divorced during this period — something of an uncommon occurrence at the time. He reached out to some individuals who ran divorce groups in other parts of the country and started a program with a colleague in Buffalo. The local divorce group received attention in newspapers, and Jensen said they were deluged with business. At this same time, he also became involved with a local experimental theater company, which eventually drove his move closer to New York City, to Dutchess County.

Here, he began his career in the public mental health system, working for what was then the Dutchess County Department of Hygiene. After about a month, he was appointed as one of the supervisors in a new initiative in New York State-Case Management. Later, he became manager of a very large day treatment program in Dutchess County, where he actively worked with one of the state psychiatric facilities.

He moved to New York City in 1981 and briefly left the mental health system to work as an executive recruiter at a publishing firm. In 1982, Jensen began his career with the New York State office of Mental Health. He took a position with a state inpatient unit, then moved to a new supervisory role in a new admissions diversion project involving two state psychiatric centers and two New York City municipal hospitals. He was then hired as the first director of social work at a new state forensic psychiatric center in Manhattan in 1985. He would become a liaison from the hospital to the forensic roundtable at the state capitol and develop and coordinate an employee assistance program.

At the same time in 1985, he started working at Rikers Island. For the first nine years, he was the evening and weekend manager at the facility’s mental health center. In 1994, the city shifted to using vendors at Rikers, and he was offered a therapist position, which allowed him to continue working there part time (he also wanted to keep his job with the State Office of Mental Health). He worked as a mental health therapist at Rikers from 1994 to 2020, delivering individual services, running a few groups, and doing suicide risk assessment.

Jensen was offered a director of social work position in 1988 in a larger psychiatric facility in Brooklyn, doing hiring, working on a few hospital-wide committees, and other administration duties. He moved on to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in 1991 first as the assistant director of community services and then as director of social work. He remained at Creedmoor until 2005. During his time there, Jensen wrote conversion policies and regulations to put six or seven clinics in Queens in accordance with new state regulations and hired numerous social work staff. In 2005, Jensen accepted a promotion at Manhattan Psychiatric Center as director of community services, where he remained until 2010, during which time he improved many of the center’s outcome indicators, and became the senior executive for outpatient services. After retiring from this position from the state in 2010, Jensen expanded his time at Rikers Island to full time, remaining there until 2020 at age 73.

Having extensive experience in some of the most controversial areas of social work, Jensen has accumulated some key lessons in the field: Always be aware of the larger political and societal climate and the variables impacting an individual, group, or larger community; know the importance of practice fundamentals while embracing new information; be patiently impatient and resilient in the face of often daunting individual and systemic challenges and inequities;  understand the value of teamwork as well as a diverse and inclusive workforce; learn the importance of taking care of yourself; how interactions marked by respect champion the best outcomes; fully appreciate the impact of trauma on individuals, groups, and communities, the importance of addressing these factors individually and systemically; and the importance of using data-driven information to support good policy and practice. Jensen is proud of his role in both hiring and of training of social workers, including affiliations with all of the New York City area schools of social work.

“That's a lot of work and a long career,” he says. “I know things have changed immensely, but what I learned at University of Chicago has served me well in many, many different endeavors. At Chicago, even if you're green — but if you're motivated — you're going to get a great foundation for moving forward in your career and life.”