FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                                                                    July 2, 2007

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

Leadership Transition at Casa Myrna Vazquez

Casa Myrna Vazquez, New England’s leading nonprofit dedicated to ending domestic violence, has announced that Executive Director Georgianna Meléndez is leaving the agency effective June 29th.  Meléndez has been named to the newly-created position of Assistant Commissioner for Strategic Development and Community Relations at the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance.

Deborah Collins-Gousby, Director of Residential Programs, and Chris Liebke, Director of Human Resources, will be leading the agency while the Board conducts a search for a permanent replacement.  Prior to joining Casa Myrna in 2005, Collins-Gousby spent 14 years in leadership roles at Boston’s Elizabeth Stone House, also a provider of shelter and services to women and children affected by domestic violence.  She will be responsible for oversight of all programmatic areas at the agency, with Liebke overseeing all administrative functions.  Liebke, who also joined the agency in 2005, previously served as Director of Human Resources for the municipalities of Westford and North Andover, Massachusetts and for The Harbor Schools.  She is an adjunct professor of human resources at Merrimack College and Southern New Hampshire University.

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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.  In addition to operating SafeLink, the 24/7 statewide domestic violence hotline (877-785-2020), the agency has an emergency shelter and two transitional living programs in the city of Boston for women and children made homeless by domestic violence. Supportive services include legal advocacy service, individual and group counseling, children’s services, housing search assistance and advocacy, economic development training, a peer-led teen dating violence prevention program and community outreach and training on the issue of domestic violence.