Bobbie London
Bobbie London is a licensed marriage and family therapist at South Shore Stars who created the Kinship Support Group. The group puts non-traditional families together to share a meal, stories, and understanding of each other’s unique living situations. Bobbie reminds us that circles of support are best created with those who share that experience. So, she put them together and built a village. The lesson we take from Bobbie is to be unafraid to see yourself in the ones for whom you advocate.
Bobbie’s Kinship support groups provide circles of support to grandparents raising their grandchildren and aunts and uncles raising their nieces and nephews
Photo: Stephanie C. Olsen
Our conversation begins here:
What led you to this career?
First of all, my love is early childhood education. When I was in high school, I started in early childhood as a teacher's aide in a preschool class and I loved it. This is an age group that I love. But I had in my head that I wanted to be a photographer and maybe an art teacher.
I was on my own as a 17-year-old due to family circumstances, and my college plan needed to take an alternate path. I chose to attend Mass College of Art and major in black and white photography. I loved it, and I was good at it, but I did not like the weekly critique of contact sheets. Every week we had to take many rolls of film and pin all of our photographs on the wall. Other folks in the class were very avant garde, and I was a romantic… photographing velvet with rose petals falling. My work did make it into the senior portfolio, but I realized I was taking pictures for myself and not for others.
I then began taking classes in early childhood education. My true passion is working with kids and families. I was a preschool teacher at the Hennigan School in Jamaica Plain. Then I went to the Brookline Schools Staff Children's Center and I was a lead teacher in the toddler room. I was the kind of teacher who really needed to know what was happening with the family and how everybody ticked. I decided to attend Cambridge College and I completed a Bachelor's Degree in family and community systems and a Master's Degree in education. I continued my studies by pursuing my license in marriage and family therapy. I was a working mom and had opened a family child care at my home with a beloved colleague. It was a wonderful way to be with my son and stay in the field while going to school.
The licensed marriage and family therapy credential was new at that time and most of the people at Cambridge College then were women in their second career. The cohort that I was with was about ten women, of which I was the youngest, and we all went through it together. By the time I graduated, I knew that I wanted to merge early childhood with family work. I graduated from Cambridge College in 1995, and the first job I had was where I work now, where I've been for 29 years.
South Shore Stars was previously called South Shore Daycare. When I was first hired, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and South Shore Daycare formed a collaboration where they created a job that was half seeing clients at MSPCC and half being a member of the social service team at South Shore Daycare. The theory was I would spend 20 hours per week at South Shore Daycare and identify kids that would be good candidates for therapy, refer them to MSPCC, and it would be kind of a bridge/collaborative model. That was a year before MSPCC became a “fee for service” model. That meant clinicians would not be paid for collateral work, phone calls, home visits, and no-shows, resulting in people leaving the agency. Consequently, South Shore Daycare chose to hire me full-time. As the agency was expanding its identity to focus on education, enrichment, and family support the name was changed to South Shore Stars. This occurred simultaneously with the profession requiring increased credentials and requirements for licensing and accreditation in the field of early childhood and after-school and summer programming, creating a higher standard in the field.
What have you seen change—or not change—in early childhood education and care since this became more professionalized? Were family needs and support different?
The population of families that have financial stressors has obviously grown in terms of how many single parents are raising families alone. Families are facing a lack of housing, isolation, lack of support systems, unemployment, immigration, court involvement, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health, food insecurity and poverty. What happens when kids are removed because of abuse and neglect? Where are they placed? Is it a kinship home or a foster home? There is a very limited foster care network and many fractured families trying to pick up the pieces. The court system and the Department of Children and Families step in to help support the children, provide a safe environment, and stabilize the family after a crisis. We work closely with DCF, public schools, Early Intervention, pediatricians, developmental specialists, and mental health professionals to provide resources to help families cope and heal.
To your point about focusing on education, not just childcare: at what point did that shift in our society? 30, 40, 50 years ago?
Good question. Maybe around 30 years ago…There was a time when being a preschool teacher, it required far fewer certifications.
To be considered a higher-quality preschool program, teachers need to have classes in early childhood development, professional development credits, mandated CPR and first aid, mandated reporter training, trauma-informed practices, early literacy skills, training in high needs and neuro-divergent children, speech, language, sensory issues, and behavioral concerns.
If kids were eligible for Early Intervention services from ages 0 to 3, those EI specialists would make referrals. If they make a referral to the public school once they turn 3, there are specific services that they are eligible for provided by the public school system in their community. For working parents, specifically, that's not going to fill up a kid's day. Right? Thus, that kind of need merges with a preschool education curriculum, identifying all the areas of need to prepare kids for kindergarten. For lack of a better way to explain it, we highlighted that early intervention was something that either your pediatrician or your cohorts identified with a special need. Then preschool became the early intervention for kindergarten.
If we already know the student has excellent academics, but their social skills are lacking, we acknowledge those strengths and areas of need. There are students who are athletic, but they don't talk to any other kids. If there's anything uneven about their development—(my new favorite word, “uneven”)-- it would be identified in a preschool situation, and we could access services, get them those services, and provide a more comprehensive service delivery system to meet their needs.
Stars’ early childhood philosophy is focused on social-emotional, play-based education. Our literacy curriculum, academic programming, and enrichment offerings are strategically incorporated into the school day. Our after-school programs and camp experiences provide a wide variety of activities for students with limited options. We have many families who are apartment dwellers. Those folks don't necessarily have the resources or opportunities to have a backyard go on field trips or do things in the community that might cost money or need a car, or require time off from work.
They might be a parent or caregiver who works a third shift or is new to the country, is disabled, doesn't speak English, doesn't have a driver's license, or has had some kind of crisis like mental health or substance abuse.
There's a high burnout rate in this field and this is not a usual calling. You're not going to be a millionaire, and you work many hours. So what moves you?
There's not a beginning, middle and end, where you can say, “Look at this final product, look at what I did.” There was a time when I volunteered with a friend at a high school theater production. I was so envious of her—you have a script, actors, a casting call, costumes, hair, makeup, then rehearsal, then the play; the concrete culmination of a collective group’s hard work. The experience had such a satisfying result. I don't always get that in this work. It’s a work-in-progress all the time. The satisfaction comes from teachers and parents working together for their children, creating a community where they might not have a community, knowing that the teachers love their kids so much. The reward is in the family and school collaboration, sharing the success of seeing children grow, flourish, and excel. We have parents who used to attend our programs as children. We have teachers that used to be students at the school. The success stories are a source of pride for our teaching teams.
Is there a story that made you pause and think, “This is why I'm doing what I'm doing”?
Well, I'm sure a very big part of it, just like for any person in the mental health field, is about what's happened in your own life. You know, there's a reason that people who are adopted work in the adoption field. People who are in recovery are drawn to that kind of work. My parents were divorced, and I have a younger brother, eight years younger, and I was definitely a parentified kid. I was always watching and I was hyper-vigilant to what was happening around me, and I was a truth-teller. I was the kid at the top of the stairs listening to my parents fight. I’m risk-averse, but on the other hand, nothing scares me, anything you tell me would not shock me. I strive to be as caring and non-judgemental as possible. Those are the pieces of my personality that have been in me since I was a kid. My own divorce and experience raising my two sons as a single parent with limited resources have more fully informed my commitment to supporting children and families in challenging circumstances.
It sounds like you could identify and connect with a lot of the families you're helping because of these pieces.. Do you feel like you have to have an empathetic role to be good at this?
I feel like you do have to be empathetic, but you can't be an empath. It’s a tricky line. Maintaining boundaries and drawing on your own experience without projecting is important in this profession. It takes very conscious conversations. In my own parenting journey, I did not start out as a single parent, but I became a single parent. When I was a single parent things shifted, just like with anybody in that situation. I realized that it was actually better for me to parent by myself than to do it with somebody who is not a healthy co-parent. I discovered the most rewarding population in working with the kinship group. Grandparents, aunts, uncles raising grandchildren, and nieces and nephews— I could identify with all the responsibilities placed on them and their willingness to step up on behalf of the children. Whoever else is involved, whoever else should be responsible for this child is not. But these grandparents, aunts and uncles would never opt-out. In many ways that group expands beyond kinship; including single parents, and somebody whose partner died, or they are the parent with a mental health or a substance abuse problem but want to be involved in their kids’ lives. And so I can identify with the families I am helping. They need a larger village.
Everybody's family looks different here. Some families can look really good from the outside and on the inside have the same exact problems, but it doesn’t show. I see a piece of myself in every family I work with. Something as simple as when I was first married; I didn't have my driver's license until my oldest child was four years old when I was 33. It really hindered my independence, my choices, and who I thought I was. Life was harder. I had to get around on my own. I was very dependent on my husband at the time to drive me and I got myself scared into thinking I wasn’t getting my license because I didn't need to and I was fearful and lacked confidence. I've been driving for 35 years, which is great, but I have a soft spot for women who don't drive and are dependent on their partners to drive them or have not fulfilled their potential because they don't drive.
I often share my story and announce “We're going to get you a driver's license, and we're going to get you a car, and you won't need that man anymore because you'll be independent!” I have moms calling, “Guess what, Bobbie? I got my driver's license!” You know, it opens up your world.
And you’re now in a role with them that celebrates their achievements, not just being the one who was with them in a dark hour.
The same thing happens with the kinship group—knowing you are with other members who struggled with unstable family members with mental health and/or addiction as well as the challenges that come with that experience, and the safety to talk about it without feeling like you're trashing the people you love. The group has a unique bond…in that there are so many commonalities to folks’ lives and history. The key to the support is to have members never feel alone or ashamed. We do our best to release the shame that group members enter and replace it with a shared life experience. My kinship support groups become a very safe place to say whatever you're feeling. The theme is that they all have mixed feelings with mixed emotions; you can love your adult child and be so angry and disappointed that they are not taking care of their own child. You can love your grandchild but be resentful that you don't get to retire or travel in that RV, or play golf, or just stay home. Or maybe you can't retire because you are being a parent when you want to be a grandparent, just a grandparent. You want to love up those grandbabies or nieces, and nephews…and give them back to their folks and not have the day-to-day responsibilities.
I feel, in many ways—probably for lots of therapists or people who have any kind of advocacy role—I want to give people what I wish I had.
That, right there. I think that's what makes you extraordinary. So how are you going to stop doing all this? I know that everyone at some point wants to retire, but you don't sound like you're ever going to.
Not yet. I have more to give. You know, there are times when I'm definitely weary. I have good self-care. I really, really build that in. Whether it's creating a cozy place for myself, music, walking, nature, friends. Talking, I love to talk. Talking through my thoughts helps me process. I listen and talk for a living, prioritizing being present for others and myself.
It’s one of my favorite things about you.
Sometimes, I say to myself, “Stop. Listen.” Or “Just be quiet. Just be.” I've learned too, that there are times when I’ve got to stop trying to fix or advise and let things take their natural course. A key element to my longevity has been working with teachers and lots of younger people. I highly value diversity, culture, and mixed generations in my life. Don't just stick with one cohort. It's not the real world. I'm always open to being a lifelong student of ideas and thoughts. There are new things to learn.
There are times when my role is the wise elder. Sometimes I have to say the hard thing. In my position, family members are not going to see me every day, but they trust me and have invited me into their story. With me, you can hear my words and bleed and scab over and sit with it. But, unlike a teacher telling you the hard thing, they won't have to face the teacher the next day. Like I said, one of the most rewarding relationships I have is with kinship folks. And in that group specifically, I've had to give really hard-to-hear information. For example, when your adult child wants to visit and just shows up on your doorstep. You love them, are grateful they are alive…but not sober or appropriate. You're raising their child. And your adult child, who has an addiction problem, shows up on Christmas Day, shows up on Easter, shows up on their birthday, without calling. You feel guilty about turning them away, so you don’t. But that visit messes with the kiddo and it can ruin that special day forever. The day that mom came and something bad happened, or she called and said she was coming and then she never came. So even having to say, “You need to set a limit, have boundaries, you need to create a structure.” It could be a phone call that you monitor so that you can control the conversation to protect the children; there may be false promises that you are going to have to handle when tears and disappointment happen.
It sounds like the reason for your success in approaching these sensitive topics may stem back from not being liked to be critiqued in art school, so you kind of know how to deliver.
I often must share information that is hard to hear. I have a very open personality and hopefully communicate with empathy and sincerity. If you create a safe environment and nurture a trusting connection, you can help people come to a conclusion that in some ways they either already know or they would have come to eventually, but you're shining a light on it or saying it out loud. Sometimes people share something with me that they have never shared with anybody. I believe this happens because they're ready to move through the trauma or address it more openly—another of my new favorite words, ”readiness”—to do what's going to come after they say it out loud. The next step is more clear, facing them.. One of the first grandparents I ever worked with, whose daughter was a heroin addict, was in jail when I met her. She was raising her grandson. She said to me, “My daughter's in jail, and I have only told my priest, I've never told anybody else. Nobody asks me. I don't tell them.” After she told me, I was fully engaged with a simple question, “What can we do to help you?” There lies the readiness to do the work—somebody just gives you a tidbit of what's really happening. And just like any kind of crisis in a family, there is a whole iceberg under there. I'm in a field where I know many secrets, and that is a lot to carry. We all have a story. We must honor and respect every story. We carry and hold our stories. If I can help carry and hold some of that weight for others in need, I have found meaning in this work.
BE A CATALYST
Inspired by Bobbie? Here are ways you can get involved with her mission:
DONATE Every donation you make is a step towards brightening futures. Your contributions empower South Shore Stars to continue supporting over 1,300 children, youth and families across the South Shore. By providing quality early education, enriching summer programs, academic guidance, behavioral health supports, and vital family services like our kinship groups, Stars is making a tangible difference in our community. Every contribution counts.
Help Us BUILD a Brighter Tomorrow. Support the expansion of our current programs in Quincy, Randolph, and Weymouth and help realize our future vision for education on Boston’s South Shore. We need your help to establish a centralized hub for training and advocacy in a newly renovated, three-story facility in Weymouth, MA.
The Stars School and Learning Center and Early Childhood Stars expanded location features:
• High-quality care and education for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers
• With funding, a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education-approved special education
school for children with language learning differences, including dyslexia
With your support, this vision can become a sustainable reality where children, clinicians, therapists, educators, and families find a nurturing and innovative space to call home.
SPREAD THE MESSAGE on social media (Instagram and Facebook). Share our stories and our posts. Spread the word about the kinship families in your community. Together, we can amplify our impact.
