Mentor Extraordinaire

The Jersey Cares Youth Workforce Development Fellowship is designed for low-to-moderate-income youth of Essex County and addresses the gap between youth workforce skills and their employment opportunities. The Fellowship creates a unique opportunity for Fellows to benefit from the merging efforts of Newark’s major companies and its vibrant nonprofit sector by learning skills that employers demand, exercising the skills in internships and gaining access to permanent employment opportunities. It is through the talent of our volunteers, who are subject matter experts in their field of work, that our Fellows build their workforce skills.

One such expert is Adrienne Petrino, a longtime Jersey Cares volunteer who donates her time as a workshop facilitator providing our Fellows with a solid understanding of emotional intelligence. Adrienne is not your average workshop facilitator because she takes her work personally and knows that emotional intelligence is much more than a soft skill. She never begins a training workshop without shaking every Fellows hand, looking directly into their eyes and calling them by name.

As a facilitator, Adrienne creates an environment that encourages the pursuit of self-awareness and seeing failure as an opportunity to succeed. Her 18 years of experience enables her to help others unlock their potential through self-discovery, vulnerability, and mindfulness. Adrienne’s mentoring is focused on engaging groups to give and receive feedback, in addition to managing conflict in a positive manner. For example, program participants are recorded on video during a three-minute mock interview. The video is then played back for the cohort to collectively engage in group discussion about the individual’s performance.

After each of Adrienne’s workshops, participants demonstrate far greater creativity, productivity, and happiness with themselves and each other than they had when they had walked into the workshop. You can hear it in their tone during their interactions with each other. You can see it in their body language as they leave the workshop. Adrienne says that:

“building relationships all starts with unlocking one’s potential by discovering the curiosity in you and being curious about others. Interpersonal communication is a skill set that has continuous evolution in one’s toolbox. By exposing oneself to other perspectives through listening and nonverbal communication, you become mindful and self-aware of your actions and emotions, and the emotions and actions of others. Your mindset begins to shift; it recategorizes and strategizes your approaches and actions through empathy, gratitude, and happiness.”

Adrienne Petrino is currently the Senior Speaker Bureau Manager at VMLY&R, a global full-service marketing agency which fuses creativity, technology, and culture to create connected brands that impact the world. Her role emphasizes client engagement and building impactful and cohesive teams. Her career spans from leading teams of up to 35 individuals across a variety of industries, which include sport, hospitality, and biotech.  

Adrienne earned an Accredited Coach Training Program Certificate from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) in Leadership Coaching for Organizational Performance with Rutgers University. She is pursuing an Associated Coaching Certificate with ICF that she expects to complete by December. Adrienne is also a 4-Year Volunteer Grief Support Facilitator with Imagine, A Center for Coping with Loss, in Mountainside and Newark, NJ.

Adrienne credits her passion for service and volunteerism to her attitude of gratitude, which has been developed through resiliency from enduring life’s challenges and reflecting on the joy and beauty this life has to offer. We continue to be honored by her generous gift of time and talent to others through Jersey Cares.

Click here to learn how you can follow Adrienne’s lead and support local youth with the Youth Workforce Development Fellowship today!