Schools and DSS: Making It Work

Posted October 29, 1999
By News editor

On Friday, November 15, the Harvard Graduate School of Education will sponsor a one-day conference "Schools and DSS: Making It Work."

Keynote speakers Catherine Ayoub, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Hugh Leichtman, Director of Wediko Children's Services, will discuss how the state responds to children in need of protection and to allegedly abusive and negligent families. Other issues that will be addressed include the influence of law on DSS cases and the policy difficulties that make it so difficult for schools and DSS to collaborate.

Workshops include:

Trauma and Assessment: The Value and Limitations of Psychological Testing Abigail Maxton, Ed.D., a guidance counselor in the Lexington MA school system will address what assessment can and cannot do. In addition, she will be sharing her expertise about trauma, describing some of the ways that it can show up in testing and in school behaviors.

The Elementary, Foster and Kinship Project: Walker Home & School Dr. Thomas Latus, Ed.D., director, Kathi Moreland, MSW, supervisor, and Wayne Sakovich, MSW, supervisor, will discuss their model of DSS/school interaction--its structure, scope and history. Through the presentation of specific cases, they will show how information flows to improve services for kids, families and school practitioners.

Voices of Advocacy: Grandparents, Adoptive Parents and Foster Parents Harriet Jackson Lyons, a grandparent, Bill LaPierre, a foster parent, and Lisa Fitzgerald, a foster and adoptive parent will help us understand how the issues are slightly different for each of them. Advocates can be inspiring and extremely informative. We hope that the group discussion will give school practitioners a clearer appreciation of the roles and perspectives of families in the lives of children who have been involved in complicated relationships with DSS.

HEART: a DSS-School Collaboration in Lowell Schools Roberta Evans Haas, Director of HEART, will discuss a school/DSS model that illustrates how these two organizations can work together more effectively.

The conference will be held from 8:30 am - 3:30 pm on Friday, November 5 at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Lecture Hall, Longfellow Hall on Appian Way in Cambridge.