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A social worker by background, Jacqueline Garrick entered the policy and program management realm upon her discharge from the US Army where she had specialized in post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recovery and transition services.
Garrick has used her clinical experiences to improve quality of life programs and benefits for veterans, their families and employees. She has served in executive positions at the American Legion and the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Defense (DoD) and with Congress.
Garrick is a recognized public servant advocate with awards from several distinguished organizations. She is known for her work on organizational and professional development, strategic planning, programming and budgeting, legislation, oversight and investigations, personnel matters, and resilience and prevention approaches in the workplace. When Garrick left government, she founded Whistleblowers of America to provide peer support to those suffering the impacts of retaliation and advocate for mediation and continuous process improvement.
She developed the Whistleblower Retaliation Checklist to identify retaliation and its psychosocial impacts on employees in relation to the traumatic stressor of identity disruption. Garrick has coined the term Workplace Traumatic Stress and penned a Whistleblower Peer Mentor Code of Ethics and Workplace Promise campaign available on the WoA website.
Ted is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps who is a combat and disabled veteran.
From 1979 to 1983, he served on full-time active duty with the Marine Corps as a Logistics Officer before he joined the Marine Corps Reserves where he performed intermittent extended periods of active duty from 1984 to 2006. During this timeframe, he also served in the Persian Gulf War with the 10th Marine Regiment in 1991.
In 2003, he was mobilized out of the Individual Ready Reserves in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and again in 2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. After he retired from the Marine Corps in 2006, he attended Rhode Island College for 2 years and obtained a Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work in 2008.
Subsequently, he conducted individual and group therapy with combat veterans from January 2009 until February 2018 at the Warwick, RI VET Center for the Readjustment Counseling Service. Since 2018, Ted has been actively involved in advocating for changes in the VA’s VET Center Program because of excessive clinical productivity standards that have been adversely impacting counselor welfare and degrading their ability to provide quality care to veterans.
Christian Greene is a clinical social worker who has been practicing in DC Child Welfare since 2005. Christian has touched thousands of investigations and case managed or supervised hundreds of foster children, being noted as an expert in her field.
In fact, on behalf of the District and qualified by OAG she provided expert testimony in DC Superior Court. Recently, she accomplished her goal to make systemic change to ensure the safety of children, the well-being of the social work workforce, and government transparency/ accountability while adhering to a code of ethics to safeguard our vulnerable constituents and the general public. Christian’s whistleblowing, which began during her Ombuds tenure (2015-2017), focused her energy on advocacy, education, public testimony, and confidentially mobilizing community members, advocates, and organizations to persuade DC Council to act. She used her voice to represent the forgotten, this resulted in the introduction and ultimate passage by the DC Council, despite a Mayoral veto, of B23-0437 – “Office of the Ombudsperson” for Children Establishment Amendment Act of 2020.
Dr. Aaron Westrick, a former research director for America’s largest body armor company, Second Chance Body Armor, blew the whistle on the production and sale of defective vests that were sold to police officers.
Whistleblower attorneys supported by NWC represented Dr. Westrick in a False Claims Act qui tam complaint filed against the manufacturers of the vests and the manufacturers of the Zylon fiber within the vests.
After a 14-year legal battle, a conclusion was reached with all defendants eventually paying to settle allegations of a False Claims Act violation. Dr. Westrick was a featured speaker at NWC’s 2018 National Whistleblower Appreciation Day Celebration on Capitol Hill.
