The occasion was the annual Community Based Juvenile Justice Project Task Force meeting at the MassMutual Center in Springfield.
Ginger Pisani speaks Friday about her husband being killed in a violent crash six years agoSPRINGFIELD – Ginger Pisani told a crowded conference hall Friday she was first filled with anger, even hatred, for the person whose driving killed her husband six years ago.
But speaking to groups of young people about what driving distracted, drunk, or otherwise impaired can do has given her “a sense of peace,” she said.
The occasion was the annual Community Based Juvenile Justice Project Task Force meeting at the MassMutual Center.
Pisani spoke about her work with Hampden District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni’s Safe Driver Education Program.
A little later in the program students on Youth Advisory Board – created by Mastroianni in November – reported back, though graphics and their own words, on their findings on such topics as school climate and youth violence.
Ginger Pisani’s husband Joseph Pisani, a counselor for Longmeadow schools, was killed Oct. 18, 2006, on Route 20 in Westfield when a car driven by 25-year-old Jason B. Cook of Southwick crashed head-on into his car.
Cook was sentenced to 3½ to seven years in state prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter from the crash.
“What’s hard for me is seeing the pain this has caused my children,” Pisani said.
Speaking to area high schools as part of the safe driver program “has given me a voice,” she said. “I know that’s what Bob would have wanted.”
Dorothea Polk speaks at youth conference Friday.Kathleen O’Connor, a victim witness advocate in the Hampden District Attorney’s office for 23 years, said she has seen a steady stream of families coming in seeking justice for their loved ones.
She said under the safe driving program, presentations have been made at 18 schools.
The Youth Advisory Board is made up of three regional components and each took the stage in turn.
The Central region took on the issue of “school climate,” what makes it good and what makes it bad.
Chicopee High School student Dorothea Polk said most students feel most comfortable talking with teachers rather than administrators.
“The higher the figure, the more trust issues there are,” she said.
Danielle Lessard of Sabis International Charter School gave a listing of students who struggle the most.
It included students who: don’t have much family support; have disabilities; come from households in poverty; have a language or culture outside the majority; or are not involved in extra-curricular activities.
Danielle Lessard talks about struggling students during the task force meeting.The Western region took on the issue of youth violence.
Agawam High School student Tim Provost said elementary school can bring exclusion or mean jokes, and is a place where often bullies and victims are identified early and “they understand it as their role.”
It is in Middle School when physical fights usually start, when the Internet is a bigger issue, when the jokes get meaner.
Sheena Tritscher of Westfield Vocational High School said gossip and rumors are a big factor in school life and are especially difficult to handle in small schools.
“You’ll read stuff on Facebook,” she said, and then people will be talking about it in school.