FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 9, 2007

Contact: Nathalie Favre-Gilly
Phone: (617) 521-0127
Email: nfg@casamyrna.org

Deborah Collins- Gousby appointed to Mayor's
School Readiness Action Planning Team

Deborah Collins-Gousby, Director of Residential Programs at Casa Myrna Vazquez, has been appointed to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s School Readiness Action Planning Team (APT). This newly constituted group will advise on the development of a strategic action plan to promote school readiness and ensure the healthy development of Boston’s youngest children. The group was formed with the specific intention of preventing the academic achievement gap among the city’s next generation of students by beginning with a focus on children’s earliest experiences.

Collins-Gousby was one of 60 members chosen to be appointed from among the nearly 250 nominated. They represent 12 different sectors that impact the lives of young children and their families. Representing the diversity of the city, and the city’s children and families, 64% of the group’s members are people of color. More than 30% of the invited members are individuals with significant expertise and experience who had never had the opportunity to participate in this type of taskforce.

As Casa Myrna’s Director of Residential Programs, Collins-Gousby oversees the agency’s three shelter programs for women and children made homeless by domestic violence, and is also responsible for its Children’s Services program. A graduate of Emerson College, she and her husband Steve live in Boston with their three children.

###

Casa Myrna Vazquez is a Boston-based organization dedicated to ending domestic violence in the lives of women and children through advocacy, prevention and intervention. What began in 1977 as a single shelter accommodating eight families has grown into New England’s foremost provider of shelter and comprehensive services to abused women and their children, operating the 24/7 statewide domestic violence hotline SafeLink (877-785-2020), emergency shelters and transitional living houses. The agency ’s range of programs includes legal advocacy services, mental health counseling, children’s services, housing search assistance and advocacy, a peer-led teen dating violence prevention program and community outreach and training on the issue of domestic violence.