Charles Lerner, State Director
What about Massachusetts CASA’s mission compelled you to join the organization?
I’m a previous foster youth, adoptee, and an adoptive father through kinship care. My son had a CASA. I’m not overexaggerating when I say that she was by far our number one resource as we were becoming a family. She’s still in our lives over a decade later. I believe that the child welfare system needs to be reimagined and redesigned. Massachusetts CASA provides all of us the opportunity to be catalysts for change, including bringing greater dignity, humanity, and justice to the system. I love participating in developing compelling and evocative marketing campaigns, launching dynamic and impactful trainings, contributing to legislation that creates meaningful change, and empowering CASA programs and their volunteers to advocate for the best interests and well-being of some of our state’s most vulnerable children.
Can you tell us a little bit about your professional background?
First, I should share that I believe my greatest asset is my lived experience. It has taught me more than any job or college course. However, I’ve spent over 25 years in the nonprofit sector in the fields of child welfare and mental health. This experience, and the people that I’ve been mentored by and worked with all along that way, have taught me a lot. They’ve helped me become a better and more effective human being. I was the founding Executive Director of Boston CASA. I’m proud that during my seven-year tenure, Boston CASA increased its revenue from $60,000 to over $800,000, volunteers from 33 to 175, and children with advocates from 60 to 225. I also led the first LGBTQ foster-to-permanency program in California as well as taught at multiple universities including California State University, Cambridge College, and Harvard University. I have a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Syracuse University and started my career as a therapist. While I moved on from that as a career, the training I received has set the stage for a career that I couldn’t even imagine 25 years ago. What a blessing!
What brings you joy?
I’m a Capricorn and apparently we like to recharge in nature. This makes sense considering the sun, trees, a nice breeze, chirping birds, and the rabbits who seem to have set up shop in my yard all bring me joy. I love to sit in my rocking chair with a cup of coffee on a beautiful day. That also might be my southern roots (maternal family’s roots are in Southern Appalachia). We love our rocking chairs down south!
Charles welcomes messages and can be reached at charles@macasa.org.
Julie Louissaint, Community Engagement and Education Manager
What about Massachusetts CASA’s mission compelled you to join the organization?
One of Massachusetts CASA’s core values of centering lived experience had a profound impact on my decision to join the staff, as I was born in El Salvador, experienced living in foster care in El Salvador, and was then transracially and internationally adopted to the US. I look forward to leveraging my out of home experience and expertise to meaningfully influence strategy development and implementation of multiple MA CASA priorities related to raising public awareness about CASA and providing equity and justice-centered statewide training and professional development opportunities for CASA staff and volunteers.
Additionally, the majority of my professional career has aligned with Massachusetts CASA’s mission of ensuring that children involved in the child welfare system have both a voice and the appropriate services and resources they need to thrive. This important work also includes empowering local CASA programs to center the well-being of children while advocating for a more equitable, fair, and just child welfare system.
Can you tell us a little bit about your professional background?
Prior to joining Massachusetts CASA, I spent the past decade focusing my career on advocating for the advancement of policies, best practices, and collaborative strategies that result in better outcomes for children, youth, and families involved in the child welfare system. In particular, my professional background in advocacy, building relationships across systems, macro-level policy research, and clinical social work all fuel my passion and commitment to empower young people with out of home experience to elevate their own voices in working towards their best interests and improved outcomes from their systems involvement.
I graduated from Roger Williams University with a B.A. in Anthropology, Sociology, and Spanish and received my Masters of Social Work (MSW) from Boston College in 2014. Prior to graduate school, I received a Fulbright Grant in 2011 to conduct anthropological research for ten months in El Salvador. My research focused on the social, political, and historical components that have influenced the cultural construction of adoption in El Salvador and contributed to its shifting intercountry adoption statistics. The conclusions gained from this research project have been helpful to social work professionals and international policymakers as a guide to identify how current international child welfare service models could be redesigned to better serve Latin American countries.
I began my career in social work as an in-home therapist at Adoption Journeys, working with adoptive families to address clinical concerns related to mental health, trauma, attachment, loss, and joint problem solving. I also held a position as a Program Coordinator at Silver Lining Mentoring, providing clinically-informed guidance to a caseload of mentoring matches, supporting long term relationships between young people impacted by foster care and dedicated volunteer mentors. Most recently, I was a Program Manager at both Boston CASA and CASA of NH, providing supervision to volunteer CASA GALs to ensure that they effectively advocated for the best interests of court involved children throughout MA and NH who have experienced alleged abuse or neglect.
What brings you joy?
Enjoying a quiet, relaxing Sunday morning comfy on the couch with my husband, my son, and our dog Bella – eating breakfast and watching my son’s favorite TV shows together (right now, it’s Sesame Street!).
Julie can be reached at julie@macasa.org.
Olivia Norton, Child Welfare Law and Policy Advocate
What about Massachusetts CASA’s mission compelled you to join the organization?
Massachusetts CASA’s key value of hope, working to address complex and systemic issues and create positive change through our work, and the opportunity to provide training and community engagement resources that center equity and justice. To properly serve children and families within the micro levels of our society, we must look to the macro. Every individual’s experiences are shaped by the structures under which we operate, and by addressing these systemic and institutional barriers we can better serve every member of our community. I hope to utilize my educational experience to help develop resources that create positive change across our network.
Could you tell us a little bit about your professional background?
Last May, I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with my B.A. in History and a Minor in Education. I took part in the Secondary Teacher Education Program, building experience in curriculum development and pedagogy through my graduate coursework during my Undergraduate career. The intersection of my studies in history and education has fostered my understanding that education is a tool of empowerment; in understanding our past we can begin to inform our advocacy and social justice work of the present. I am joining Massachusetts CASA Association through the AmeriCorps Legal Advocates of Massachusetts program, and hope to continue my career through legal and policy advocacy.
What brings you joy?
Spending time working on my hobbies; crochet, painting, and scrapbooking.
Olivia can be reached at admin@macasa.org.