CHILDREN AND FAMILY LAW (CAFL)
Meg Grant, MSW, LICSW
Office: 617-910-5839
Email: mgrant@publiccounsel.net

Bio: Margaret “Meg” Grant, MSW, LICSW is a clinical social worker with over 20 years working with children and families involved in the child welfare system.   Throughout her career she has worked with complex families around issues related to adoption, foster care, trauma, attachment and permanency.   In 2011, she began working with the juvenile courts in Massachusetts as a Court Investigator and as a Guardian ad Litem. Additionally, Meg has trained with the Federation for Children with Special Needs and had done educational advocacy for families.  She has also been a private social work vendor for the Committee for Public Council. As a vendor social worker Meg worked with private bar attorneys and their clients to address social worker issues on their cases in the hopes of helping them reach their legal goals.  Currently, Meg is the Director of Private Social Work Services for the Children and Family Law Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services.  In this role, Meg supports private bar attorneys in retaining private social work vendors for their cases.  Additionally, has provided trainings to attorneys on “Enhancing Legal Representation through Social Work Intervention.”

 

YOUTH ADVOCACY DIVISION (YAD)
Claudia Dunne, MSW, LICSW
7 Palmer St. Suite 302
Roxbury, MA 02119
Office: 617-910-5753
Email: cdunne@publiccounsel.net

Bio: Claudia Dunne, a licensed clinical social worker, has worked with disenfranchised and traumatized children, adolescents, and families since 1986. She has extensive experience with adolescents in both the juvenile justice system and the child welfare system. Throughout her career, Ms. Dunne has been a strong advocate for all her clients, working to address systemic injustices.  Her work has focused on trauma and its impact on child and adolescent development, family systems across the generations, and neighborhoods and communities. Ms. Dunne was a private social work vendor for the Committee for Public Counsel Services and the Federal Public Defenders Office from 2001-2018. She was the co-founder and Clinical Director of Youth Service Providers Network (YSPN), a partnership between the Boston Police Department and Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston designed to provide intensive services to the city’s most at-risk youth and their families.  She was instrumental in the program’s design, growth, and implementation along with supervising 15 clinical social workers.  In collaboration with two colleagues, she designed and implemented a curriculum on Secondary Traumatic Stress, Self-Care and Resilience for DYS employees. Ms. Dunne was the Assistant Clinical Director at the JRI Evaluation and Treatment Unit for eight years where she provided intensive clinical and programmatic services to adolescent boys committed to DYS who struggled with complex trauma, loss, abuse, violence, depression, substance use, neglect and the effects of oppression and poverty among many other factors. She also worked as a counselor and advisor with Reflect & Strengthen, a program designed and led by young urban women from poor and working-class neighborhoods in Boston.  Ms. Dunne earned her undergraduate degree at Wheaton College in Norton, MA and her MSW degree from Boston University School of Social Work. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Hubie Jones Urban Service Award from the Boston University School of Social Work Alumni Association.

 

MENTAL HEALTH LITIGATION DIVISION (MHLD)
Olivia Dubois, MSW, LCSW
10 Malcolm X Blvd Suite 2-1
Roxbury, MA 02119
Office: 617-989-8100
Fax: 617-541-0904
Email: odubois@publiccounsel.net

Bio: Olivia has her Bachelor’s in Psychology and is a Master of Social Work. She graduated from Boston College School of Social Work where she currently teaches Systems of Oppression and Health and Mental Health Policy. She has worked in the Roxbury Defenders Office as a Social Service Advocate since 2015. Olivia then went on to manage the SSAs in the Northeast Region for the Public Defender Division in 2021. Olivia is a current participant of the City of Boston’s Mental Health Crisis Response Design Group where she works with other Boston community members to design a non-police community-led crisis response.

 

PRIVATE COUNSEL DIVISION, ADULT CRIMINAL (PCD)
Kristin Dame, MA, LMHC 
75 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110
Office: 617-910-5815
Email: kdame@publiccounsel.net

Bio: Kristin started in the human service’s field as a housing advocate for elders and persons with disabilities living in substandard conditions and facing displacement. That experience, combined with internships in Boston Juvenile’s Court Care and Protection Probation Department and on the Family Team of Boston’s Healthcare for the Homeless, laid the foundation for a career working with society’s most vulnerable and often invisible populations. It was her later work and what she witnessed as a clinician at MCI-Cedar Junction and as the Clinical Coordinator of the Secure Treatment Program at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center that inspired Kristin to join CPCS as it’s first Public Defender Division Regional Supervisor for Social Service Advocates (SSAs). Her role on defense teams and as a supervisor was to ensure the client’s narrative was heard and to advocate for the least restrictive disposition. It was that same conviction that led her to the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) ABI-MFP team where she helped individuals with an acquired brain injury and progressive, degenerative diseases who were stuck in long-term care facilities re-enter the community by assessing and mitigating their risk. She is excited to return to CPCS as it’s first Director of Private Social Work Services for CPCS. In this role she promotes holistic legal representation by supporting the private bar attorneys in retaining private social services vendors for their adult criminal cases. She holds a B.S. degree in Developmental Psychology and Political Science, and a M.A. in Counseling Psychology.

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