Ascend to new heights!
Ascend is run by a team of criminal attorneys and professionals specializing in criminal justice and psychology. Ascend recognizes that helping offenders towards positive change is serious business. As such, Ascend requires lead instructors to hold advanced degrees and experience in a related field. Ascend also often brings in guest lecturers, including law professors, career coaches, probation officers, judges, teachers, and communication experts, to allow students to learn from experts with a broad array of skills and experience.
Christine Morse, J.D.
Co-Founder, Co-Director
As a lawyer, Christine has worked in diverse areas, including education legislation, criminal defense and bankruptcy law. Ascend combines her passions of education and criminal law because it helps people move away from crime through education. She believes that supporting people to reach their potential in living fulfilling lives increases the quality and the safety of the whole community.
Toni White, J.D.
Co-Founder, Co-Director
Rose Gilbert
Program Manager
Rose has always had a passion for helping others. Rose’s entire career has been spent working with people and her intelligence, organizational skills and tenacity combine with a gentle nurturing spirit that makes her the perfect person to keep Ascend and its students on a successful path. What Rose loves most about Ascend is that it affords her the opportunity to see Ascend students blossom as they find jobs and enroll in college.
Faith Johnston
Program Assistant
Faith mentors Ascend students with a specific focus on helping them gain employment and enroll in college. She is currently a graduate student at California State University, Sacramento, working toward her M.S. in Criminal Justice. In her studies as well as her work with Ascend, Faith is driven by her commitment to transformative justice and her desire to help people overcome their past involvement with the criminal legal system.
