MSW, LICSW
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WORK, YAD DIVISION

A licensed clinical social worker, Claudia 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, Claudia 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.

Claudia 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.

Claudia 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.

Claudia 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.