Commission Member
Gail Williams
Gail Williams is currently a resident of Roxbury, MA with years of experience working with children and families. She has worked as a school guidance counselor and is a member of MSPCC Kinnections program.
Her involvement in grandparents raising their grandchildren came about through personal experience. In 1993 she was granted temporary custody of her then eight months old grandson. He is the child of her eldest daughter. She found ROCC (Raising Our Children’s Children) through a newspaper story. ROCC was a support group founded by Harriet Jackson-Lyons. Through ROCC she found information and resources. More importantly, she says she found a community of other grandparents and relative caregivers facing the same challenges.
Gail was eventually granted permanent custody of her grandson. Less than two months before he turned 21, I was granted custody of his newborn brother. I have adopted both of them. In between these two grandsons I raised another grandson from another daughter, under different circumstances. Although, he has lived with Gail permanently since he was nine, she had physical custody through a Caregiver Authorization Affidavit.
Gail became a Commission on the Commission on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren in 2020 and is the co-chair of the Outreach and Information Sub-Committee.
Gail Williams is currently a resident of Roxbury, MA with years of experience working with children and families. She has worked as a school guidance counselor and is a member of MSPCC Kinnections program.
Her involvement in grandparents raising their grandchildren came about through personal experience. In 1993 she was granted temporary custody of her then eight months old grandson. He is the child of her eldest daughter. She found ROCC (Raising Our Children’s Children) through a newspaper story. ROCC was a support group founded by Harriet Jackson-Lyons. Through ROCC she found information and resources. More importantly, she says she found a community of other grandparents and relative caregivers facing the same challenges.
Gail was eventually granted permanent custody of her grandson. Less than two months before he turned 21, I was granted custody of his newborn brother. I have adopted both of them. In between these two grandsons I raised another grandson from another daughter, under different circumstances. Although, he has lived with Gail permanently since he was nine, she had physical custody through a Caregiver Authorization Affidavit.
Gail became a Commission on the Commission on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren in 2020 and is the co-chair of the Outreach and Information Sub-Committee.