DBT40 Honoree: Jenevive Newman

Title: Director of RISE (Refugee Integration and Support Efforts)

Jenevive Newman | DBT PHOTO BY LUIGI CIUFFETELLI

Workplace: Jewish Family Services of Delaware

Age: 36

Originally from Ghana in West Africa, Jenevive Newman now passionately supervises a team of 12 employees as the director of RISE, or Refugee Integration and Support Efforts, at the Jewish Family Services of Delaware. She serves vulnerable populations and, in many cases, ensures their safe arrival and transitions. 

Together, she says her department serves more than 350 refugee clients every year with over 100 volunteers statewide and a budget of more than $1 million. Last year, Newman’s team served 644 clients from over 18 counties. RISE is currently the largest refugee resettlement program in the First State, helping refugees new to Delaware secure housing, medical services, employment, school enrollment, mental health support and other opportunities. The calls for help, she adds, can come at all hours of the day and night, calls that her team gladly handles to help another in need. 

Along with her passionate leadership through RISE, Newman volunteers at her local church in various capacities, including its children’s ministry by teaching Sunday school classes. She also works with her church in her home Ghanaian community, providing a mentorship program for teenagers focusing on teenage girls. The program has successfully helped fund various vocational skills and trades for the young women they serve. 

For fun, Newman loves to travel and is currently on her 13th country with hopes of increasing that number in the future as she experiences new adventures. Newman earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Ghana in 2012, a master of arts in development studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2017 and a master’s degree in social work from Delaware State University in 2021.