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New center named for Rita O’Brien Dee

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Tewksbury resident Rita O’Brien Dee, surrounded by friends, family, and colleagues, was honored by Community Teamwork in Lowell for her half century of service to the organization. The Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health & Development will be a resource for Community Teamwork and providers across the community who are working with children with behavioral, emotional, and developmental challenges.                                                                                                              (Paige Impink photo)

By PAIGE IMPINK News Correspondent paige@yourtowncrier.com

TOWN CRIER – Oct 16, 2021

TEWKSBURY — She thought she was attending a board meeting to accept a donation from a supporter of Community Teamwork, a vital services organization she works with in Lowell. But, when Rita O’Brien Dee saw her face on colorful t-shirts and friends and family under a festive tent, she realized something else was go­ing on.

Community Teamwork CEO Karen Frederick wel­comed O’Brien Dee and explained the surprise.

“We’d like to welcome Rita and acknowledge more than a half century of service to the community, and to the Commu­nity Teamwork family by dedicating The Rita O’Bri­en Dee Center for Behavioral Health & De­velopment,” said Freder­ick.

Through a generous anonymous donation and a subsequent grant from the Greater Lowell Com­munity Foundation, Com­munity Teamwork was able to establish the program, located at the James Houlares Center on Phoenix Avenue in Lowell. The center will be the headquarters for programs and services that promote healthy social-emotional development for children, in­crease children’s success in school, strengthen children and families, and mitigate adversity through trauma-inform­ed care.

According to Child and Family Services Division Director Meghan Siem­bor, “This opportunity could not have come at a better time… This opportunity enables us to meet a critical need and ad­dress a significant public health issue — children’s mental and behavioral health.”

Siembor praised O’Brien Dee.

“Her love for children is unparalleled as is her passion for giving back to the community,” said Siembor. “It truly is an honor for me and the staff across the Division of Child and Family ser­vices to be able to develop this Center in her hon­or.”

O’Brien Dee was visibly moved.

O’Brien Dee has been involved with Commu­nity Teamwork for 56 years. As a single parent raising five children on her own, she faced difficult struggles trying to work, put food on the table, and keep a roof over the heads of her family.

O’Brien Dee started her career as a teacher aide at Head Start, and earned her Associate’s Degree and quickly be­came an early childhood teacher at the center. O’Brien Dee was in the classroom for 27 years.

Upon retirement, O’Bri­en Dee joined the Head Start Policy Council and Community Teamwork’s Board of Directors. O’Bri­en Dee is also a member of many CTI committees and supports numerous initiatives.

According to data collected by CTI, mental health has emerged as a prominent community need, jumping from the fourth-most cited community need to the second-most cited need from the prior survey cycles. The impact of the pandemic is notable.

Key information also points to mental health as the most pressing is­sue in the community behind the need for better housing, according to CTI’s data for the great­er Lowell community.

O’Brien Dee is known in Tewksbury for her participation in the Friends of the Library, the Tewksbury Historical Society, and is an active member of the Tewks­bury Senior Center, Gar­den Club, the Democra­tic Town Committee, and is a former election wor­ker.

O’Brien Dee has been an inspiration and example of giving back to the community, not just in Tewksbury, but in the greater Merrimack Val­ley.

If you would like to donate to help support the new Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavior­al Health & Develop­ment, please contribute to the Greater Lowell COMMUNITY Foundation c/o The Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development

http://homenewshere.com/tewksbury_town_crier/news/article_9bbbe5f6-2c57-11ec-b58a-cfe577fff7e4.html

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three women standing together
three women standing together

RITA O’BRIEN DEE – AN INSPIRATION

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New behavioral health program named for longtime educator Rita O’Brien Dee Community Teamwork Inc.

By Aaron Curtis 

acurtis@lowellsun. com 

https://bit.ly/3lm0u4j

Lowell » Rita O’Brien Dee spent the last 56 years committed to her community through Community Teamwork Inc. — a career that started in 1965 when she worked as a teacher’s aide in the Head Start program.

Dee, who was a single mother of five children in her early 30s at that time, transitioned from an aide to a teacher in 1971.

“I always looked forward to coming back every September and seeing my new kids,” Dee said. “They came in like buds and went out like flowers.”

She spent 27 years at Head Start before moving on to serve children, families and the rest of her community through Community Teamwork Inc. in another capacity. Dee was a member of the Head Start Policy Council and to this day serves on the CTI board of directors.

Dee turned 90 this year, but the energetic and eternally positive Tewksbury resident has not slowed down.

“Rita O’Brien Dee,” said CTI CEO Karen Frederick outside the James Houlares Center in Lowell on Wednesday. “A 56year legacy of community action and still going strong.”

‘They came in like buds and went out like flowers.’ – Rita O’Brien Dee, retired Community Teamwork Inc. educator, of the students in the Head Start and other school programs

The program — still in the planning stages — is called the Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development.

Dee » 7A

 

Community Teamwork’s new Center for Behavioral Health and Development is dedicated to longtime parent, employee and board member Rita o’Brien Dee, much to her surprise. From left, are CTI CEO Karen Frederick,  Marie Sweeney and Rita O’Brien Dee. Julia Malakie / lowell Sun

Frederick, Dee, several of her family members, and CTI employees and representatives were outside the center on Phoenix Avenue for a ceremony to honor Dee and announce the launch of a program that will carry with it her name.

Dee

FROM PAGE 1A

“I had no idea,” Dee said. “I am just so honored. It’s such a big thing and such a good thing. I love it.”

Meghan Siembor, deputy director of CTI’s Early Childhood and School Age Programs, said the program will be a resource for CTIand providers throughout the area who are working with children with behavioral, emotional and developmental challenges or who have experienced trauma.

The Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development — which will be based at the James Houlares Center — will be the headquarters for programs and services “that will promote healthy social- emotional development, increase children’s success in school, strengthen children and families and mitigate adversity through trauma- informed care,” according to a program flier.

The program was kickstarted by an “generous anonymous donation” and a $ 20,000 grant through the Greater Lowell Community Foundation, according to Frederick.

“We will begin working to do a needs assessment and analyzing the behavioral health needs of the children and staff in our programs and our community, identifying resources that are out there to support them, and identify the gaps in critical services,” Siembor said.

During Wednesday’s ceremony, Siembor listed statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that show 7.4% of children ages 3 to17 have a diagnosed behavior problem. Of that age range, 7.1% have diagnosed anxiety and 3.2% have diagnosed depression, according to the CDC website.

Siembor added those numbers “are constantly increasing.”

The behavioral health of youth in the U. S. was dealt a blow by the coronavirus pandemic, which led to social isolation, financial hardships among caregivers and school closures. Siembor said the Kaiser Family Foundation released a survey in October 2020 that showed 31% of parents said their children’s mental or emotional health was worse than before the pandemic.

“This opportunity really could not have come at a better time,” Siembor said about the launch of the new program. “It enables us to meet a critical need in our community and address a significant public health issue, which is child mental and behavioral health.”

The announcement of the Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development’s launch came as a surprise to Dee. She was led to the James Houlares Center under the guise that there was a grant that CTI

Those interested in making a contribution to help support the Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development, can do so online at glcfoundation. org/donate.

Donations can also be sent by mail, to the Greater Lowell Community Foundation c/o The Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development Fund, 100 Merrimack St., No. 202 Lowell, MA 01852. Follow Aaron Curtis on Twitter @aselahcurtis.

Community Teamwork’s new Center for Behavioral Health and Development is dedicated to Rita O’Brien Dee, left, who gives a hug to CTI chief Financial Officer Penny Judd of Kennebunk, Maine.

Dee pointed out she was driven to the center by a fellow board member, Marie Sweeney and that she was needed to appear for a photo shoot. When she arrived, her family members were on hand, and people were wearing T- shirts with her smiling face on the front, along with the name of the new program.

Community Teamwork’s new center for behavioral Health and development was recently dedicated to longtime parent, employee and board member Rita O’Brien Dee, right, and she shared a hug with CTI CEO Karen Frederick at a ceremony announcing the new program.

JULIA MALAKIE PHOTOS / LOWELL SUN

‘We will begin working to do a needs assessment and analyzing the behavioral health needs of the children and staff.’ – Meghan Siembor, deputy director of CTI’s Early Childhood and School Age Programs

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mary renn getting balloons flowers and rocker delivered to her house retired now years at CTI
mary renn getting balloons flowers and rocker delivered to her house retired now years at CTI

‘There was always room in Mary’s heart’

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CTI celebrates retirement of beloved employee Renn after 42 years

By EMMA MURPHY | emurphy@lowellsun.com | Lowell Sun

PUBLISHED: August 10, 2020 at 2:27 p.m. | UPDATED: August 12, 2020 at 7:55 a.m.

COURTESY CTI

Kind of like Publisher’s Clearing Hous, CTI had flowers and balloons delivered to Mary Renn recently at her home in southern New Hampshire. Renn also received a CTI rocking chair.

LOWELL — In her 42 years of working at Community Teamwork Inc., Mary Renn went above and beyond. Whether it was organizing the annual event at Lenzi’s or bringing endless patience to her work with CTI’s families and teachers, Renn could always be counted on.

Now recently retired, Renn’s co-workers are already feeling her absence.

“You’d ask her for one thing and she’d come back with 10 things that you needed that you didn’t know (you needed),” said Jenny Pickett, intake manager at Child and Family Services. “She was kind of magic.”

From left, Karen Frederick, CEO, Mary Renn, Rita Dee O’Brien, CTI Board Member,

Renn came to CTI as a teacher’s aide. Her son had been participating in CTI’s Head Start program, in which parents are encouraged to volunteer once a month. Soon, Renn began volunteering more frequently, and it did not take long for teachers to ask if she could help as a substitute teacher.

“By the end of the year, I was going in every week,” Renn said.

What appealed to Renn about Head Start was the program’s independent learning philosophy. The children learned at their own pace, she said.

With CTI’s help, Renn attended Wheelock College and got her degree to teach, all while working at CTI and raising two kids at home.

Over the course of her career at CTI, Renn has served in multiple capacities, including as a supervisor overseeing five classrooms and their teachers. Most recently she worked in intake, helping families through the process.

“She could walk them through the process as patiently, so patiently, as anyone ever could and help them get the services … that they need,” said Pat Sawyer, a longtime CTI associate and teacher. “Very often, when parents arrive at CTI’s doorstep, they are, if not in outright crisis, they are in need, and to have someone like Mary to deal with right away was such a good thing.”

Since Renn’s retirement, Pickett said her team at CTI have already wanted to call her with questions, to which Pickett has had to tell them to let Renn enjoy retirement.

At a recent Zoom party celebrating Renn, Sawyer recalled at least two people asking Renn where to find things at the office.

According to Pickett, Renn’s experience working across CTI’s various departments made her a tremendous resource.

For Renn, the timing felt right to retire this year. At 66, she is young enough to travel and enjoy her hobbies, like sewing and arts and crafts; not to mention her six grandchildren.

“My husband has been retired for seven or eight years and, honestly, I’ve been a little jealous that he gets to stay home,” Renn said.

Though enjoying retirement, Renn said she misses the people with whom she worked. Especially the Friday lunches they would spend together talking about their weekend plans.

“It’s a really diverse group, and everybody looks out for everybody else,” she said. “You know that you’re there for them and they’re there for you.”

At Renn’s recent goodbye Zoom party, she was able to talk with not only her Friday lunch group but co-workers from her early CTI days. She said it was a blast.

“It was people I haven’t worked with or haven’t seen in maybe 15 years,” Renn said. “My old supervisors were there. It was just kind of nice to talk to everybody.”

In addition to the party, CTI organized a “Publisher’s Clearing House”-themed presentation of a rocking chair the nonprofit gave Renn for her retirement.

It is a testament to the impact Renn has had through her work.

Pickett sees Renn’s warmth and dedication reflected in everything she did at CTI; even the annual holiday door-decorating competition.

One year, Pickett’s team decided to decorate their doors based upon children’s books. Renn decided to design her door based on “The Mitten,” which tells the story of a mitten dropped in the snow. Woodland animals find the mitten and one by one they crawl into the mitten and it is able to hold them all.

In creating her door, Renn created animals out of felt and knitted her own mitten so that anyone passing by the door could play out the story and fit the animals in the mitten.

“In a lot of ways, that is kind of her,” Pickett said. “There’s always room in the mitten for another person. There was always room in Mary’s heart.”

Emma Murphy | Multimedia journalist

Emma R. Murphy joined The Sun as a reporter covering Billerica, Tewksbury and Wilmington in 2019. Previously, Emma spent four years covering Brookline and Needham for the Brookline TAB and Needham Times. A University of Vermont graduate, Emma enjoys kayaking, cooking and traveling. She once hiked coast to coast across northern England.

emurphy@lowellsun.com

 Follow Emma Murphy @MurphReports

‘There was always room in Mary’s heart’