Renée Calhoun spends about three quarters of her week as a licensed marriage and family therapist with a full private practice caseload. The rest of the week she builds programs that bring murals, affirmations, and hard conversations about trafficking into schools across Bucks County. 

She is also a mom of two, a Girl Scout troop leader, and a woman who has spent nearly her entire adult life circling back to the same question she first asked herself at 15, working the front desk of a youth detention center. “Why am I on this side of the bars, and kids my age are on the other?”

Renée Calhoun is a 2026 Bucks County Parent Women of Influence Award Winner

Bucks County Parent’s Women of Influence Awards celebrate exceptional women making significant impacts in our community. Tesser was nominated by her husband and selected based on her achievements and dedication to creating positive change. Each Women of Influence Award Winner has committed to support Family Focus Media’s core values. Together, we are committed to fostering a sense of belonging and empowerment for all families. All backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations are welcome and safe with us.

From a Youth Center Front Desk to a Decade in Trauma Work

Calhoun grew up in Philadelphia and started working at the Bucks County Youth Center as a teenager when a family friend asked for help at the front desk one summer. She kept the job through college, eventually moving into the kitchen to help prepare meals and then to work directly with the detained youth. The disconnect she noticed then, between the affluence of the county around her and the incarcerated kids her own age inside those walls, shaped the direction of her entire career. 

That interest eventually led her into a decade of work as a drug and alcohol therapist in outpatient settings, sitting with clients navigating addiction, instability, and trauma. It was there that she had a realization that reshaped how she understood her own work. “I recognized that I had likely been sitting across from survivors, even individuals actively being trafficked, in my therapy room for years,” she said. 

Without the right framework, she had been hearing those experiences through the narrower lens of addiction alone. “A lot of times, I would hear, ‘I just did what I had to do for my addiction,’ she said, “without really understanding exactly what that meant.”

Building Words of Worth

That realization eventually brought her to Worthwhile, a Pennsylvania nonprofit that serves survivors of human trafficking through education, safe housing, and employment programs. Calhoun had consulted with the organization informally for years before stepping into her current role as Community Impact Coordinator. She splits her time between private practice and building out Worthwhile’s newest initiative, Words of Worth. In under two years, the program has reached roughly 10 schools and more than 5,000 students, with waiting lists for the current school year.

The program pairs a school assembly with a community mural, painted by resident artist Tim Gibson and spelling out six words across its petals: Seen, Heard, Brave, Worthwhile, Unique, Brave. Students, parents, teachers, and often entire families paint alongside the artist, and the mural stays up permanently once the paint dries. 

“The outcome is connection,” Calhoun said of the events. “There’s no pressure to perform or do it right.” 

She has watched the program reach beyond traditional classrooms, too, including a recent mural at Fostering Hope, a nonprofit supporting foster families, where kids picked out clothing and school supplies before painting alongside their foster parents.

Calhoun sees the deeper purpose of the work as a form of prevention. “It starts long before a pimp contacts your loved one,” she said. “It’s in feeling valued and worthwhile.” 

Her hope for the program’s future is straightforward: more artists, wider reach, and enough donor support that no school is ever turned away for lack of funding. “I don’t really see any barriers,” she said, “except honestly, our time.”

A Life-Changing Decision Made at 21

Long before Words of Worth existed, Calhoun made a choice that still shapes how she thinks about her work today. At 21, working at a residential mental health facility, she was physically assaulted by a resident she had built a connection with. She decided to press charges, not out of anger, but because she understood the systems involved in a way that most people her age likely would not have. 

“I knew this kid was not getting the help she needed at this placement,” she said. Pressing charges involved juvenile probation, a system Calhoun trusted from her years at the youth center, and one she hoped would finally get the girl real support. “It had nothing to do with me,” she said. “I already had the concussion.” 

That experience led Calhoun to seek therapy herself, ultimately shaping the way she practices today. “My therapist was the only person who knew that I knew what was best for me,” Calhoun said. “I just needed someone to help me pull that out, rather than giving opinions.” 

Now, she shares a similar philosophy with her own clients. “I think everyone’s an expert on themselves,” she said. “I happen to be an expert on relationships because that’s what the degree on the wall says, but I’m not an expert on my client’s relationships. We have to work together.”

Mentorship Rooted in Self Trust

Calhoun credits two people in particular with shaping how she leads today. Sandy Sini, a former supervisor, helped her find what she calls her “clinical gut.” Dan Emr, Worthwhile’s founder and now her boss, pushed her to stop worrying about rejection before she had even tried. “Just put yourself out there,” she recalled him telling her. “What’s the worst that’s going to happen? Other people’s view doesn’t determine your worth.”

Calhoun extends that same encouragement to the girls in her Girl Scout troop, where she focuses less on formal lessons and more on practicing self advocacy in low-stakes settings. “You can advocate for yourself when you’re in a very comfortable situation, too,” she said, “not just when you’re uncomfortable.” 

She brings a similar instinct to her volunteer work with the Celiac community through Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a cause that became personal after her daughter’s diagnosis at age 2. Being surrounded by other families managing the same diagnosis taught her even more about the importance of self advocacy. “It was so refreshing to finally take a breath,” she said. 

What She’d Tell the Girl at the Front Desk

Asked what she would tell her 15-year-old self — the one working the front desk at the youth center, unsure yet of where any of this would lead — Calhoun didn’t reach for a grand life lesson. She just wished she had relaxed a little more along the way. “I was really uptight about it all, making sure I did the right thing next,” she said. “Instead of following values, I followed what was on paper.”

These days, when someone needs to hear it most, Calhoun keeps her message simple. “You’re not too much,” she said. “You’re just enough.”

Follow Worthwhile’s Instagram and Facebook page, and connect with Calhoun on her personal Instagram and Facebook pages. To learn more about the Words of Worth mural, please visit www.worthwhile.org/wordsofworth.

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