The Children and Families Project

The Children and Families Project was a collaboration with the Lowell Area Office of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and was funded by the UML Community Outreach Partnership Center and the Council for Communication and Information Technology.

The Laboratory for Children and Families collaborated with the Lowell DSS office to assist professionals working with families with at risk children and adolescents. Focus groups held at the Department identified needs to which members of the Laboratory responded.

We distributed several educational brochures to the Department and in the community, including a guide to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder for parents and social workers, suggestions about when to call DSS for schools and community members, and a guide to books for adoptive children and their families.

We also established an ongoing mentoring program for teens who are referred to the Department for services. By matching teenagers to college students for one-to-one relationships, we hoped that at risk teens found positive role models and interested listeners.