The Atlanta Lawyer June/July 2014 | Page 54

Truancy Intervention Project TIP celebrates its 9,000th Case! By Caren Cloud Truancy Intervention Project of Georgia [email protected] T he Truancy Intervention Project (TIP) is proud to announce that Erica Harrison, an associate with the Construction & Government Contracts Group at Alston & Bird, LLP, recently accepted the honor of taking the milestone 9,000th case. She became a TIP volunteer in the Fall of 2012, and has worked on more than 10 cases since then. An elementary school teacher in Atlanta as a Teach for America corps member prior to attending Harvard Law School, Erica saw the value of having students in the classroom daily. Erica forms relationships with each family, and unearths the root causes of the attendance problems. She assures her clients that TIP is a non-confrontational environment and that she is there to be a resource to the family. On a recent case, Erica, with the assistance of TIP and the school social workers, was instrumental in reuniting a family by obtaining housing resources that allowed family members residing in different homes to live under one roof. She is passionate about helping her clients succeed in school and life. Erica believes that after 9,000 cases, TIP has established itself as an integral part of the educational community, and for her part, this is just the beginning. Volunteer of the Year Honorees- Left to right: Mary Alexander Myers (Jones Day), Erin Payne (Oldcastle), Keli Carter (Troutman Sanders), Richard Storrs (The Storrs Law Firm), Bill Fletcher (Gibson, Deal & Fletcher), Scott Jarvis (Alston & Bird), Kasmyene Hayes (The Partners Group), Jill Pope (The Pope Law Group), Kamron Mitchell (Fox, Weiss) and Tara Stewart (McKenna Long). 54 THE ATLANTA LAWYER June/July 2014 The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association