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Lets Connect Initiative
Benches in Middlesex Dedicated to Encouraging Social Connection, Addressing Loneliness
The issue of loneliness is an issue that spans across generations and has brought on global attention as professionals from health care to government leaders and even professional sports seek a way to bring people together in the age of smart phones and virtual meetings. District Attorney Marian Ryan's commitment to this issue began in 2019 with an inaugural meeting on the public health crisis of loneliness. The meeting was held in partnership with Newton Wellesley Hospital, and brought together a panel of experts to identify the issue and explore the root causes. In the wake of the global pandemic, it became even clearer that many of the causes of loneliness had been magnified and were impacting our young people in a way that parents and educators felt unprepared to address. The launch of this new initiative builds on international best practices while being rooted in the mission of the Middlesex District Attorney's Office to improve public safety through innovative prevention. The benches are modeled after an initiative by Manchester United Football Club, who installed several of these "Happy to Chat" benches in the United Kingdom in a bid to tackle loneliness. The idea of these benches has now found global reach, now including Middlesex County. On November 1, 2023, the first "Happy to Chat" bench in Middlesex was placed at Moody Elementary School in Lowell.
Read the Lowell Sun article here.
View photos from the ceremony here.
No One Eats Alone
National No One Eats Alone Day is observed in February each year. The movement was started by an organization called Beyond Differences, and aims to combat the loneliness that students may experience during the school day, particularly at lunch. The mission of National No One Eats Alone Day is to encourage students to include everyone at lunch so that not even one student is left alone to eat.
Beyond Differences was founded by two parents in memory of their daughter, who faced social isolation in middle school. Their goal is to inspire students nationwide to end social isolation and create cultures of belonging for everyone. They hope to build a future where all youth are accepted, valued and included, all all differences are celebrated.
The RIGHTS Project: Reaching Immigrants, Gaining Trust
Many immigrants fear and distrust law enforcement based, in large part, on experiences that occurred in their native countries (e.g., corruption and brutality committed by police and government officials). In addition, immigrants are often unfamiliar with local laws defining criminal conduct, making themselves highly vulnerable to being victimized by strangers, neighbors, co-workers, employers, or family members. The RIGHTs Project engages nontraditional stakeholders (teachers and tutors) in a nontraditional setting (classrooms) to raise awareness about domestic abuse, sexual violence, and human trafficking, and the corresponding rights, relief and resources available to victims. Our most recent phase of the program includes a dedicated focus on identifying and preventing scams for which immigrants may be vulnerable, realizing that immigrants may be the unsuspecting targets of financial exploitation.
Citizenship and ESL tutors build close, longstanding relationships with their students; and often times, they are the only non-immigrant with whom students have a relationship. Thus, the RIGHTs Project provides the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office with a window of opportunity to reach immigrant victims by empowering tutors with the knowledge and resources to help protect their students. Tutors become ambassadors in helping to demystify the criminal justice system, dispelling many of the myths that prevent immigrant victims from accessing help.
Workplace Safety
The Workplace Safety and Violence Prevention Program was created in response to escalating incidents of violence in the workplace. The initiative is a unique public-private partnership which provides training in best practices for intervention, prevention, and response to unacceptable workplace behavior, including bullying and acts of violence. The program addresses the need for an organization-wide commitment to safety, the creation and communication of clear policies, and the training and empowering of employees in preventing and responding to workplace safety concerns.
Trainings recognize the importance of strengthening relationships between employees and those responsible for preventing and responding to incidents and emergencies. Trainings have two components: A 90-minute Recognition and Minimization session, where participants discuss policy concepts and assess their own internal training needs; and a 4-hour session, devoted to joining personnel from various divisions within the organization for an in-depth discussion and exercise using hypothetical scenarios. Employers can choose to participate in one component or both, together or in succession. Participants include senior management, human resources personnel, and security officers.
In addition, the Middlesex District Attorney's Office offers periodic half-day and full-day conferences on issues that commonly intersect with workplace violence, such as mental health, domestic violence, and house of worship safety.