By John Ostapowicz
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Compass Family and Community Services is bringing professionals, students and community members together at Youngstown State University for a 4 1/2-hour multidisciplinary training to improve the response to domestic violence.
The regional event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday at Williamson Hall on YSU’s campus. The initiative has received support from various organizations throughout the Mahoning Valley such as the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office and Mercy Health Foundation Mahoning Valley, along with YSU serving as the host.
The training is also in recognition of Sojourner House’s 35th year of serving domestic violence survivors within the community.
The featured speaker is Jim Schmidt, a retired fire captain and first responder, who has more than 20 years of experience. Schmidt is also the stepfather of Gabby Petito and co-founder of the Gabby Petito Foundation, which was established following Petito’s death in 2021.
Jennifer Gray, who serves as Compass’ social services and development officer and HIPAA privacy officer, is helping coordinate the event. She said the idea to bring Schmidt to the area came after seeing him conduct a presentation in February in Canton.
“[Schmidt] did such an amazing job with the audience over there, telling not only his family’s story but how, as a community, when we know better we do better,” Gray said. “We’re always learning about the field of victimization, how people present when they have trauma and when they have something bad happen to them … the work is profound, and his message is not only personal, but it’s meaningful to the work that we’re doing.”
For participating professionals, continuing education units will be available, while law enforcement officers have the ability to receive continuing professional training credits through the educational training.
Gray, who teaches at YSU, said the university and its criminal justice department support bringing educational opportunities to benefit students who will enter the workforce.
“[YSU is] always so supportive, and they love to bring things into the community that the students can benefit from,” Gray said. “We have students signing up to come to this event as well as professionals.”
Within the past year, Compass, CCA and Encompass became one agency. Gray said the collaboration allows the organization to continue their efforts by combining both experience and resources.
“We’ve had so much in the people that we serve that, honestly, once we started looking at this, it just made a lot of sense to work together, do it better, do it stronger – and that’s what we are finding,” Gray said.
The overall goal of the training is not only to inform the community, but also those looking to enter fields such first response, law enforcement or social work. It also gives young professionals an understanding of the challenges and situations associated with domestic violence.
“The students at YSU are going to be the individuals that replace me in my job, and I want to make sure that we give them all the tools. And that’s what the criminal justice department [and] social work department down at YSU, two departments that I work a lot with, are very committed to making sure that we are giving those students all the tools that we can to be successful,” Gray said.
For Schmidt, his community involvement and his commitment to protecting others started before his work in domestic violence advocacy.
He originally planned to join the U.S. Marine Corps, but a football injury prevented him from enlisting. From there, Schmidt found his way into emergency services as both his father and grandfather served as firefighters in New York.
Schmidt began his journey as a 911 dispatcher while continuing his education through fire and EMT school. After his certification, he built a 25-year career as a first responder between New York and Florida. Schmidt said helping people during the most difficult moments of their lives was one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
“Everybody’s kind of happy to see a firefighter or an EMT paramedic. People would call you seemingly having the worst day of their life. And for some people, it really was the worst day of their life,” Schmidt said. “ Then watching, you come in and hopefully make a positive difference was all the reward you ever needed – just helping somebody in a moment that they needed it.”
Schmidt’s career took on a different meaning after his stepdaughter was killed in a domestic violence homicide by her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, in 2021. The couple were traveling across the country, documenting their journey through social media and YouTube videos. Her disappearance gained national attention and led to the creation of the Gabby Petito Foundation, which advocates for domestic violence awareness and supports efforts for the search of missing people.
“We had this experience of losing our daughter to domestic violence homicide, and [her] story, her case at the time, really captivated not just the nation but the world,” Schmidt said. “And we had no idea at the time how big of an impact what happened to her had on so many people.”
The foundation’s work extends beyond domestic violence, as Schmidt said the organization also works with missing-person organizations to help families dealing with long-term missing loved ones to continue the search and not give up hope.
“We really got exposed to this whole other world. And my wife said right from the beginning, ‘We’re going to start a foundation in honor of our daughter. I don’t know what that looks like, but I just feel like we have to do something,’” Schmidt said. “We kind of dove headfirst right into it in November of 2021, right after she had passed.”
Within the organization, family members handle various areas of advocacy. Schmidt focuses on educating firefighters, EMS personnel and other first responders on how to prepare for domestic dispute calls and how to engage in dangerous situations.
“I honed in on my former career as a fire instructor and a firefighter, and I built out training programs and I go around the country doing multidisciplinary trainings for law enforcement, fire, EMS, 911 [and] prosecutors, trying to get everybody in the room together to try to improve these responses and how we look at these types of incidents to try and make a difference,” Schmidt said.
With the conclusion of the educational training, a private roundtable with Schmidt will be held at the Clarence R. Smith Family – Mahoning Valley First Responder Wellness Center in Boardman for YSU Police Academy cadets and criminal justice students. This gives students the opportunity to sit down with Schmidt to ask questions and learn directly from his experiences.
Admission is $25. To sign up, visit the Compass website.