Deborah Collins-Gousby

Deborah Collins-Gousby, director of residential programs at Casa Myrna Vazquez, was recently appointed to Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s School Readiness Action Planning Team (APT).

The newly constituted task force will advise on the creation 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 appointed to the APT from a pool of nearly 250 nominees. The task force’s membership represents 12 different sectors that impact the lives of young children and their families. Representing the diversity of the city and its children and families, 64 percent of the group’s members are people of color. More than 30 percent of the invited members are individuals with significant expertise and experience who never had the opportunity to participate in this type of initiative.

As Casa Myrna Vazquez’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.

Founded in 1977 as a single shelter accommodating eight families, Casa Myrna has grown into New England’s foremost provider of shelter and comprehensive services to abused women and their children. In addition to operating the 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week statewide domestic violence hotline SafeLink (877-785-2020), emergency shelters and transitional living houses, the agency offers a range of programs, including legal advocacy services, mental health counseling, housing search assistance and advocacy and a peer-led teen dating violence prevention program.

A graduate of Emerson College, Collins-Gousby and her husband Steve live in Boston with their three children.