Kayla Bennett
Kayla is a mitigation specialist at OCFW.
Background
Kayla is a mitigation specialist at OCFW. She began her career as a social worker in the criminal defense practice at the Bronx Defenders, and in 2019 started her own mitigation practice to help federal defense attorneys in the southern district of New York advocate for better sentencing outcomes for their clients. In 2021 she returned to her hometown of Austin, TX to help build the social work practice at the first public defender’s office in Travis County where she supervised the social work practice in mitigation and client services. Kayla holds a BA in Sociology from Wesleyan University, an MSW from the University of Chicago, and was trained in the neuroscience and treatment of post-traumatic stress at NYC's Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Kayla has previously worked as a Horticultural Therapist on Rikers Island, where she and her students designed, built, and maintained gardens while studying curriculum in gardening, botany, food justice, and landscape design.