08/01/2021 HopeWell announces hiring of Education Director

HopeWell is excited to announce that Peter Newman has joined the organization as Education Director! 

Newman has worked at the intersection of child welfare, education and social justice and brings 20 years of professional experience in education and instruction, organizational leadership, and program development and management. Peter began his career teaching English and reading to fifth graders. Most recently, he taught college level courses to youth involved with the state’s Department of Youth Services through Urban College and served as a Senior Consultant for Galloway Consulting group, where he assisted non-profit and education clients in developing and implementing programs and initiatives focused on restorative justice and civic and community engagement. 

“Peter is a strategic thinker and leader with a proven record of building and managing programs that get results,” said Shaheer Mustafa, President and CEO of HopeWell. “He is not only an educational expert, but he is also well-versed in the educational challenges confronting youth in foster care and the support they need to overcome them. Peter will be central to HopeWell’s efforts to strengthen existing partnerships and build new ones with education, child welfare, and health care leaders to help close the opportunity gap for youth experiencing foster care.” 

The Education Director will lead, launch, and grow HopeWell’s new program, RISE: Readiness, Inquiry, Scholarship, Education, which provides intensive, long-term, individual tutoring and educational support for children experiencing foster care that also addresses their social, emotional, and cognitive needs. Unlike traditional tutoring programs, RISE tutors are paired with students, not schools, so tutoring and support remains consistent throughout the four to eight changes of home placements and schools that most children in foster care experience through age 18. The RISE program will start as a pilot in the fall of 2021 in the Greater Boston area. 

Prior to Galloway Consulting Group, Newman was the Founding Regional Director of Leadership for Educational Equity, a nonprofit leadership development organization focused on ending inequities in education, including access to K-12 education. During his tenure, Newman grew the organization to more than 2,400 members across two states and drove a 200 percent increase in the Massachusetts member-engagement rate by launching new programs in collaboration with partner organizations and government agencies. Previously, he served as Senior Program Administrator for Presiding Judge Sophia H. Hall of the Circuit Court of Cook County, IL, where he created programs and initiatives that reduced barriers to academic achievement for system-involved youth and strengthened the court’s collaboration with community organizations and schools.  He also co-founded a restorative justice-based Peer Jury Program Model that included restorative justice programming to prevent violence and crime, and to offer schools an alternative to typical disciplinary practices. This program was adopted in more than 200 schools statewide. 

Newman will continue his work for Urban College of Boston, where he develops curriculum, teaches criminal law, and mentors students. He holds a Juris Doctor from Massachusetts School of Law, a Master of Laws in Child Law from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Muhlenberg College.