MarcellaÌýSchieffelin
Marcella J. Schieffelin is the founder of Justice Care, a Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô-based civil and human rights policy advocacy platform built on the principle that rights without enforcement are just promises. A Graduate LEND Fellow Alumna through Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Anschutz and JFK Partners UCEDD, she is the published author of a federally supported Supported Decision Making tip sheet and a former Co-Chair of the Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Developmental Disabilities Council Planning and Grants Committee. She testifies regularly at the Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô State Capitol on disability rights, healthcare, and civic accountability, and publishes the Substack "Justice Care: Beyond the Headlines." As a family caregiver expert in a federal grant program awarded to Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô, she helps shape policy from lived experience, and she serves as a co-primary Supported Decision Making support person for an adult family member on the Developmental Disabilities waiver. A former music therapist whose career includes work at Miami Children’s Hospital and collaboration with Music Therapists for Peace at the United Nations, she brings an interdisciplinary lens to systems advocacy. Marcella navigates her own access needs as a person with an expressive language disorder, giving her a firsthand understanding of the dual advocacy she speaks on: supporting an adult family member through complex systems while managing one's own barriers. Her work spans disability rights, immigration accountability, healthcare policy, and civic governance, united by a commitment to enforcement, not just promise.