Massachusetts Association of Guardians ad Litem, Inc. Presents:
Bridging the Divide: Trauma-Informed Practice in Family Court
(This is the first of a two-part series regarding trauma and the family)
Keynote Speaker
Viola Vaughan-Eden, PhD, MSW, LCSW
With a judicial panel including:
Hon. Michael Anderson
Hon. Melanie Gargas
Hon. Frances Giordano
Hon. Janine Rivers
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
8:30 AM – 4:45 PM
The Conference Center at Waltham Woods, 860 Winter St, Waltham, MA
and Virtually via Zoom
GALs, PCs, lawyers, and mental health professionals are increasingly tasked with understanding and addressing trauma in the lives of children and families. This conference will explain the different types of trauma these professionals encounter in families they serve. Topics will include, among other things, trauma experienced by parents, trauma experienced by children, intergenerational trauma, the lifecycle of trauma, and the specific circumstances that can result in trauma within the family.
Our Keynote speaker, Dr. Viola Vaughan-Eden, will discuss the different types of trauma a family may experience; how to identify trauma within a family; how trauma may differ between members of a family (mother, father, children); and how trauma may appear within a court-involved family. Our panel of judges will then provide insight on how they view trauma as a material issue in the cases they hear and how practitioners can better identify trauma and aid families that appear before them.
Learning Objectives:
- Understanding different types of trauma experienced by both parents and children
- How to identify different types of trauma in adults/parents
- How to identify different types of trauma in children
- How to identify different types of trauma within the family unit
- Understanding how intergenerational trauma can affect a family unit
- Understanding how the lifecycle of trauma can affect adults and children differently
- Understanding how the lifecycle of trauma can impact the family unit
- Understanding how Probate and Family Court judges handle issues of trauma within a family
- How GALs, PCs, lawyers, and mental health professionals can assist Probate and Family Court judges in identifying and addressing trauma within court-involved families
Conference Schedule
8:30 – 8:45 Welcome & Introduction
Thomas Ritter, JD, PhD, President
Linda Ouellette, JD, Education Committee Chairperson
8:45 – 10:15 Keynote presentation by Dr. Viola Vaughan-Eden
10:15 – 10:45 Break
10:45 – 12:30 Keynote presentation from Dr. Viola Vaughan-Eden (continued)
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch (provided for in-person attendees)
1:30 – 2:00 Q & A with Dr. Vaughan-Eden
2:00 – 3:30 Judicial Panel Discussion
- Hon. Michael Anderson (Middlesex Probate and Family Court, South)
- Hon. Melanie Gargas (Middlesex Probate and Family Court, South)
- Hon. Frances Giordano (Essex Probate and Family Court)
- Hon. Janine Rivers (Suffolk Probate and Family Court)
With a mental health perspective from
- Claudette Pierre, PhD
- Dante Spetter, PhD
Joined by Dr. Viola Vaughan-Eden
Moderated by Linda Ouellette, JD
3:30 – 3:45 Break
3:45 – 4:45 Fact Patterns and Discussion with Judges and Dr. Vaughan-Eden
Keynote Speaker
Viola Vaughan-Eden, PhD, MSW, MJ is a Professor and the PhD Program Director at the Ethelyn R. Strong School of Social Work at Norfolk State University. She also serves as the President and CEO of UP For Champions, a nonprofit partnered with The UP Institute, a think tank dedicated to upstream solutions for child abuse prevention. A forensic and licensed clinical social worker, Dr. Vaughan-Eden consults on and provides expert testimony in child maltreatment cases. She is President Emerita and Fellow of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, as well as President Emerita of the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence and the National Organization of Forensic Social Work. She also serves as a child welfare advisor to the National Family Violence Law Center at George Washington University and sits on the board of the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children. Dr. Vaughan-Eden lectures nationally and internationally to multidisciplinary professional audiences on child welfare and violence prevention, and in May 2025, was the Commencement Speaker for VCU School of Social Work. She contributes to several peer-reviewed journals and is an editor-in-chief of the six-volume NPEIV Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan (2022). She co-edited the national APSAC Practice Guidelines on Forensic Interviewing of Children in both 2012 and 2023. Her contributions have earned numerous accolades, including the 2025 NSU Distinguished Alumni Award, 2024 VCU Alumni Stars Award, 2023 Outstanding Individual in Academia Award from the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy, 2020 NOFSW Sol Gothard Lifetime Achievement Award, and 2012 NASW-Virginia Chapter Lifetime Achievement Award.
Presenters:
Hon. Michael D. Anderson is an Associate Justice of the Middlesex Probate and Family Court. He is a 1991 graduate of Suffolk University Law School, J.D. and received his undergraduate degree, B.A. in Political Science, from Trinity College in 1988. Prior to serving on the bench, he had 29 years of practice primarily in the Probate and Family Court and served for 10 years on the Woburn City Council where he was the City Council President. In addition to co-authoring three Supplements to the Handbook of Massachusetts Family Law (1993, 1995 and 2002), he wrote, “Getting Divorced? Make the Right Decisions.” (2003).
Hon. Melanie J. Gargas is an Associate Justice of the Middlesex Probate and Family Court. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Charles Baker in January of 2016. While attending the evening division of Suffolk University Law School, Judge Gargas was employed full-time as a domestic relations paralegal at Hale and Dorr, now known as WilmerHale. Upon graduation, cum laude, from law school in May 1990, she worked as an associate attorney with Atwood & Cherny, P.C. and later with the firm of Taylor, Anderson & Travers. In 1995, she became a principal in the firm of Travers & Gargas, P.C. until establishing the office of Gargas & Associates, P.C. in 2000. Throughout her years of private practice, Judge Gargas specialized in family law and probate litigation. She has received various recognitions, including the AV Preeminent rating in Martindale-Hubbell beginning in 1995 and a listing in The Best Lawyers in America from 2006 until she was appointed to the bench. Her firm, Gargas & Associates, P.C. was listed in Martindale-Hubbell’s National Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. She has been active in The Massachusetts Family and Probate American Inn of Court, serving as President and as First Chair of the Board of Directors. Judge Gargas is a founding member of The Hellenic Bar Association and since its founding has continuously served on its Board of Directors.
Hon. Frances M. Giordano was appointed as an Associate Justice to the Essex Probate and Family Court by Governor Deval Patrick in January of 2015. She has been the First Justice of the Essex Probate and Family Court since July of 2022. Judge Giordano is co-chair of the Probate and Family Court Education Committee and sits on the Board of Trustees of the Flaschner Judicial Institute. Prior to her appointment to the bench Judge Giordano was in private practice for twenty-five years with a concentration in domestic relations. She was a partner at Rubin and Rudman LLP in Boston for nine years. Prior to working at Rubin and Rudman, Judge Giordano was an associate, then member, of White and Inker, PC for sixteen years, and an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County. She was a member of the Boston Bar Association family law steering committee for many years and acted as co-chair for two years. Judge Giordano is the founding vice president of the Greater Boston Family Law American Inn of Court, an organization premised on providing valuable social and mentoring relationships to young lawyers. She regularly sits as a panelist at continuing education programs. Judge Giordano is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and Suffolk University Law School.
Hon. Janine D. Rivers is the First Justice of the Suffolk County Probate and Family Court. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Charlie Baker in 2017. Judge Rivers received a B.A. in psychology from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1990. She then spent the next four years working as a social worker with the Department of Children and Families. She went on to complete a J.D. at New England School of Law in 1996.
At the time of her appointment, Judge Rivers had maintained her own law firm as a sole practitioner since 1997. During her tenure in solo practice, she managed, prepared, and represented clients in juvenile and child welfare, family law, divorce, child support and custody, guardianship, and contempt matters as well as debt collections. In addition to her private practice, Judge Rivers also served as a mentor for newly certified attorneys within the Juvenile and Probate Family Courts with the Committee for Public Counsel Services. Judge Rivers was an independent contractor for Delany, Seigel, Zorn & Associates, Inc. writing final agency decisions regarding federal claims of discrimination.
Judge Rivers also served as an adjunct instructor at Newbury College and Anna Maria College. Judge Rivers was also a member of the Juvenile Bar Association (Board of Directors Vice President) and the Living After Murder Program (Advisory Board Member).
Mental Health Panelists
Claudette Pierre, Ph.D. received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. She completed her pre- and post-doctoral work at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, advanced clinical fellowship in family forensics at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Children and the Law Program, and advanced training in couples and family therapy. Dr. Pierre has held academic positions at Harvard, Tufts, Boston University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is a past President of MAGAL, a previous chair of the Education Committee and a present board member. She serves as co-chair of the Ethics committee and co-chair of the Disaster Resource Network for the Massachusetts Psychological Association. Dr. Pierre maintains a full-time psychotherapy practice in Back Bay (Boston) where she sees couples, adolescents, and adults.
Dante Spetter, Ph.D. is a Licensed Psychologist who specializes in working with children and families. She serves as a Guardian ad Litem and an Expert Witness in the Probate and Family Court and the Juvenile Court. Dr. Spetter earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology, specializing in Pediatric Health Psychology, from the University of Miami in 1991. She has taught courses in human development at Harvard University and Tufts University over a period of more than 25 years. Dr. Spetter spent 10 years consulting and training pediatricians, health professionals and psychiatric residents at Tufts Medical Center prior to opening her private practice in Arlington. She is a founding member of MAGAL and is presently a consultant to the Comprehensive Family Evaluation Center at Tufts Medical Center, where she is an Assistant Clinical Professor.
Moderator
Linda A. Ouellette, JD is a principal with Ouellette Family Law LLC in Framingham, Massachusetts. Attorney Ouellette has thirty-eight years of experience focused almost exclusively in family law and probate litigation. She is well-known for her formidable trial skills, particularly in cases involving complex financial matters and custody issues. Attorney Ouellette has served as a panelist for numerous seminars offered by state and local bar associations and has been a guest lecturer on family law topics at numerous law schools in the Boston area. Attorney Ouellette previously served on the Boston Bar Association’s Family Law Steering Committee. She has been a frequent lecturer for MCLE and is a member and previous co-chair of its Family Law Curriculum Committee. Attorney Ouellette is on the Board of Directors of MAGAL, currently serving as the Chair of the Education Committee
Registration Cost
Early Bird Registration (until October 15, 2025) $250 for MAGAL members; $275 for non-members and $325, with cost of membership for one year included at no additional cost.
Late Registration (after October 15, 2025) $265 for members, and $300 for non-members.
CE Credits
- 7.0 CE Credits have been sought for psychologists
- 7.0 CE Credits have been sought for Category V - Parenting Coordinators.
- 7.0 CE credits have been sought for independent clinical social workers, mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists
- 7.0 CE Credits have been sought for CPCS/CAFL.
Save the date!
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
For the second part of this conference series!
Keynote Speaker
Philip M. Stahl, PhD, ABPP
Rebecca Stahl, JD
Judicial Panel and other Panelists to be announced!
The second part of this two-part conference will focus on how to address trauma within the family unit for court-involved families. Building on what Dr. Viola Vaughan-Eden will teach this October, Dr. Stahl and Attorney Stahl will focus on how GALs and PCs can address trauma within their practices in an informed and child focused manner and create practical and realistic solutions for the family. Dr. Stahl and Attorney Stahl will discuss best practices for GALs and PCs (as well as attorneys and mental health professionals) working with families experiencing trauma in forensic investigations and dispute resolution processes.
The Conference Center at Waltham Woods, 860 Winter St, Waltham, MA
and also available Virtually via Zoom
More details to follow in 2026!
