2025 Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign

Although I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A is a long first name, Springfield parent Rachael can now say her six-year-old daughter can write it on her own.

Rachael first contacted CLA in the fall of 2022. She was concerned that Isabella, then aged five, was struggling to make friends and stay calm at school. Education law Staff Attorney Molly Jane Thoms worked with Rachael to help Isabella’s school understand these challenges. With Attorney Thoms’s advocacy, the school agreed to add more support to Isabella’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Within a few months, Isabella was making progress in these areas, so Rachael and Molly Jane agreed to close the case.

At the conclusion of the school year, however, Rachael realized that Isabella was struggling with many of the pre-academic skills her peers had mastered in kindergarten. Rachael arranged for Isabella to undergo a comprehensive psychological evaluation through the Baystate Developmental Pediatrics Program. The evaluation confirmed some existing diagnoses. It also found that Isabella has significant deficits in receptive language and linguistic reasoning skills. In short, Isabella doesn’t grasp what people say as well as other kids her age do – which is essential in the classroom and beyond.

Rachael is extremely attuned to her eager, sweet, and imaginative six-year-old. Rachael knew the mainstream classroom wasn’t the right fit, but was unsure how to use the Baystate findings to get Isabella what she needs. So in October 2023, Rachael reached back out to Attorney Thoms.

In the months since, Rachael and Attorney Thoms have successfully advocated for significant changes to Isabella’s education. While Isabella remains with her original first-grade teacher and classmates for social studies and science, she now receives mathematics, written language, and reading instruction with a special educator. This happens in a small classroom with lessons specially designed for kids with disabilities. Following an additional school-based evaluation, Rachael and Attorney Thoms also secured other important additions to Isabella’s IEP. This included 30 minutes with a speech and language pathologist each week and goals and accommodations related to building communication skills.

Rachael is tremendously proud of Isabella’s recent progress. In addition to writing her whole first name, she is starting to recognize sight words like “yes” that are foundational literacy skills. At the beginning of the year, Isabella would refuse to do practice work sent home by her teacher. Now, she tries activities on her own before asking for help from her mom.

Isabella is still very young, so she and Rachael likely have many more years of special education ahead of them. Attorney Thoms seeks to build Rachael’s knowledge of special education and empower her to be assertive about her daughter’s needs and collaborative with the school team. Right now, Rachael and Attorney Thoms are keeping an eye on the data collected through the IEP process. They are alert to whether Isabella may need even more specialized support to access her right to a free appropriate public education as she grows up.

“Jim” is an elderly Veteran who served on active duty during the Vietnam war.

He was referred to CLA by the Tenancy Preservation Program, a state homelessness prevention program that helps people with disabilities preserve their housing. Jim was facing possible eviction due to non-payment of rent for the efficiency unit where he had lived for the last fifteen years. After the landlord upgraded the unit, Jim’s rent jumped by over 100%], which he could not afford. After nearly a year, Jim had fallen behind in rent by thousands of dollars, and, with his limited income, had no way to pay it.

To preserve Jim’s housing, Attorney Strauss first turned to finding programs that could help Jim pay the back rent he owed. Along with Housing Unit Case Manager Ashley McGill, Attorney Strauss worked with several different organizations to get nearly all of Jim’s back rent paid off. This helped to stop his eviction, but Jim also needed help in order to stay in his housing.

Attorney Strauss then worked with several agencies, including the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program, to get Jim a voucher to help pay for his housing going forward. With the voucher, provided by a federal program for assisting low-income Veterans, Jim can afford to continue living in his current housing.

Providing Jim with the holistic services CLA can offer, Attorney Strauss also connected Jim with CLA’s Elder Unit. A paralegal in the unit provided Jim with information about trying to reinstate his Veterans’ benefits from the state and increasing his SNAP (formerly called “Food Stamps”). The paralegal also provided Jim with additional resources available for elders in his area.