JESSICA MINGUS, MSW
Executive Director
After seven years cultivating Lineage’s programs across New York City, Jessica will serve as the Executive Director of the Community Meditation Center of New York (CMC) in partnership with longtime Lineage teacher Bart van Melik, who serves as CMC’s guiding teacher.
Jessica is growing her consulting work supporting visionary founders, executive directors, and boards to build cultures of authenticity and collective leadership. She is passionate about helping a new leaders steer away from conventional “top-down” organizational practices to re-imagine work, power and partnership. It’s time to boldly and unapologetically cast off the harmful hierarchical norms that stifle transformative change work.
Jessica is the proud co-founder of a new venture, Care Lab—a virtual community + learning hub for caregivers of neurodivergent and disabled kids across the country—in partnership with fellow social worker and mindful parenting coach, Rachel Henes.
Jessica is a Garrison Institute Fellow, selected to be part of an incubator for emerging contemplative leaders committed to collective healing and generative action. With Garrison’s support, Jessica has developed a contemplative framework for caregiving children with complex needs and marginalized identities, and is writing a companion book, Healing-Centered Parenting.
She is a social worker with clinical training in child and teen trauma treatment and a Qualified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher through the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at UMass Medical School. Her research and career have been committed to cultivating care spaces for Black and brown young people inside NYC systems, and building cultures of collective care among the adult staff who work with them.
Jessica became Lineage’s Co-Executive Director in 2021, after serving as Lineage’s first Director of Programs in 2017. Since then, she has guided Linege’s programs, curricula, staff professional development and coaching. She co-designed and implemented dozens of programs across New York City that reached thousands of young people, adult staff, and caregivers.
She holds a B.A. from Princeton University, and MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work. She is the co-author of “Unpacking racism, poverty and trauma’s impact on the school-to-prison pipeline” in Strategies for Deconstructing Racism in the Health and Human Services (Oxford University Press).
She is grateful for the infinite inspiration and learnings she draws from her beloved son, village(s), mentors, and ancestors for their support and perspective along her path.
You can reach Jessica at: jessica@carelabcollective.com.