founding social worker

Jennifer Scerbo, MSW, LCSW

While working at Jersey Battered Womens’ Services, Jen Scerbo witnessed a high profile woman come through the shelter and the ensuing discussion that followed. “More women are out there in upper and middle income homes but we can’t get to them.” The statistic at that time was 99% of all domestic violence cases included financial abuse. That has not changed much. The goal was to help victims of financial abuse in identifying coercive control and to stop the cycle. However, this has remained elusive. 

Jen later met Ruth Darlene of WomenSV (Women of Silicon Valley) who with the same goal had already set the stage to be a beacon for middle and upper income women in high profile financially abusive relationships.  Ruth is a leader in the field and due to demand is focused on the West Coast.  Inspired by Ruth, Jen’s goal is to bring her philosophy to the East Coast, broaden it to  integrate clinical work and more specifically  evidenced based techniques such as CBT and DBT.

While working at the Center for Motivation and Change, Jen was also inspired by the founders philosophy. They integrated the power of collaboration, evidenced based treatments, research, and innovation in the field of substance abuse and trauma. Understanding that model, she realized that it should be applied to financial abuse.  The one aspect that  was clearly needed in the field; collaboration.   The  problem of economic abuse will require a cooraborated effort across the fields of counseling, financial planning, accounting, and the legal industries. 

…And so our story begins here.

Education

RUTGERS COLLEGE
Bachelors of Arts

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Masters of Social Work

Activities & Affiliations

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, New Jersey
Certification in Human Resource Management, New York University, New York, NY
Certification in Field Instruction, New York University, New York, NY
Certification in Criminology, Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ

Interests

Currently training in CBT at the Beck Institute, Pennsylvania
Currently training for AFCPE