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Jean Homrighausen ’66 Brings Hope and Healing

Homrighausen uses her faith to help countless clients

Jean Homrighausen still remembers feeling â€śawe, shock, joy and humility” when the Alliance for Children and Families honored her with its national “Spirit of the Alliance Award” back in 2013. But the case manager/therapist at Cleveland’s Beech Brook Center felt equally humbled when a young client called her his â€śOutstanding Gangsta&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;łŇ°ů˛ą˛Ô»ĺłľ´ÇłŮłó±đ°ů.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

Both are signs of the deep respect and affection felt for the woman who dresses in bright colors that accessorize a brighter smile and is known for her gritty patience in working with the most challenging clients. 

“One of the gifts God’s given me,” she said, “is never to give up.” 

“Ms. H,” as she is known, likely inherited that trait from her father, the Rev. Tom B. Homrighausen, a 1938 Wittenberg graduate and a Lutheran pastor so devoted to the ministry that, as a child, Jean thought he lived at church. 

On a visit to a woman suffering from equally severe arthritis and mental illness in a state hospital near Massillon, Ohio, she watched as her Daddy lifted a â€śtiny, frail, unattractive” body on to his lap, “looked into her daunting eyes, and saw beyond the trauma and ugliness to a person deserving of dignity, care, respect and love.” 

During a professional life treating young clients so disturbed and violent that many cannot control their bladders and bowels, much less their behavior, her father inspired her to “make an imprint” on lives “riddled with almost unspeakable tragedies, horrific abuse (and) sorrows.” 

Enduring their sufferings with them is â€śkind of like when you go through a tunnel,” she explained. “If you look either way you could crash, so I keep looking ahead.” 

When accepting the â€śSpirit of the Alliance Award,” Homrighausen showed a faith-based spirit of defiance as well. 

“In our fast-paced, technologically entrenched, business-driven environment, where the treatment and care of those who are cast aside, wounded and forgotten is buried in paperwork, financial shrinkage and many other frustrating barriers,” she said, “I still stand Old School.” 

Her award, like the honorary doctorate Wittenberg awarded her father in 1963, has its roots in his belief, which Homrighausen&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;˛őłŮľ±±ô±ô&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;±č°ů´Ç´Ú±đ˛ő˛ő±đ˛ő:&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;“G´Ç»ĺ doesn’t give up on us -- and Christ went all the way to the cross.” 

With unshakable faith, Ms. H believes she’s doing sacred work grounded in the same enduring love that sustains her and gives her clients hope, as it did the woman in her father’s arms. 

“This relationship-building is the only way to transformation and healing,” she said. 

That’s Old School.

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Wittenberg's curriculum has centered on the liberal arts as an education that develops the individual's capacity to think, read, and communicate with precision, understanding, and imagination. We are dedicated to active, engaged learning in the core disciplines of the arts and sciences and in pre-professional education grounded in the liberal arts. Known for the quality of our faculty and their teaching, Wittenberg has more Ohio Professors of the Year than any four-year institution in the state. The university has also been recognized nationally for excellence in community service, sustainability, and intercollegiate athletics. Located among the beautiful rolling hills and hollows of Springfield, Ohio, Wittenberg offers more than 100 majors, minors and special programs, enviable student-faculty research opportunities, a unique student success center, service and study options close to home and abroad, a stellar athletics tradition, and successful career preparation.

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