She was also careful, in her public statements, about how she described the psychological dimensions of her experience. She did not accept diagnostic labels that others applied to her. She spoke about her survival in her own terms.
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## The JAYC Foundation
Jaycee Dugard founded the JAYC Foundation to support families dealing with abduction and other kinds of loss. The organization’s name reflects the initials of Jaycee and the daughters born in captivity.
The foundation works with survivors and families across multiple dimensions: providing emotional support, connecting families with resources, and advocating for policy changes that could prevent future failures. It operates as an extension of Dugard’s personal experience and her stated desire to have something constructive come from what happened to her.
In 2012, she received a Lifetime Leadership honor at the DVF Awards—the awards presented by designer Diane von Furstenberg—for her courage and her work with the foundation.
The JAYC Foundation’s focus on families reflects an understanding of the impact of abduction and captivity that extends beyond the primary victim. The parents and siblings and other family members of missing people live in extended uncertainty that carries its own psychological costs. Organizations that support these families address a real need that has historically received less attention than the investigations themselves.
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## What the Officers Said Later
Officer Ally Jacobs’ story did not end with the August 2009 encounter. She was medically retired from the UC Berkeley Police Department after suffering injuries unrelated to the Dugard case that required two unsuccessful surgeries. She also survived breast cancer. She eventually earned a master’s degree, and her thesis topic was the role of intuition in police work—a direct reflection of what she had experienced in August 2009.