WAKEFIELD — Executive Director Margie Daniels is pleased to share that the Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth (MPY) sponsored two conferences at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical School featuring Dr. Adolph Brown.
Dr. Brown is a career educator, mental health professional, business entrepreneur, and humorist of more than 30 years. Dr. Brown is also a social justice advocate, martial arts expert, a real estate and cartoon maven, and became a gun collector after inheriting his grandfather’s collection.
Both events were held on Wednesday, April 13, with Dr. Brown first addressing high school students in the morning, and then addressing a group of educators from across Massachusetts in the afternoon.
More than 1,200 high school students attended “This is Real Talk – Connecting with Young People by Saying What Needs to Be Heard” in Greater New Bedford’s Field House. In addition to the sophomore and junior classes from Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical School, students from Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School, Dartmouth High School, and Whaling City Junior/Senior High School participated in this interactive student assembly.
Topics addressed by Dr. Brown included social and emotional learning, conflict resolution, mental health, racism, implicit bias, anti-bullying, inclusion, fostering empathy, and taking care of each other. He informs and encourages students, with an inspiring, relevant, and entertaining presentation. Dr. Brown credits much of his success to his humble beginnings of being reared by a single mother and living in the abject poverty of an inner city housing project. Guns, drugs, and violence were a way of life as Dr. Brown was growing up. When he was 11, his beloved older brother was murdered.
Despite these challenges, Dr. Brown became the first in his family to graduate from high school and attend college. He became a master teacher, a researcher, and earned a doctorate as a psychologist.
Dr. Brown presents concrete strategies about how to achieve success despite where you are from, labels placed on you, and defeating attitudes. The students were highly responsive to Dr. Brown’s positive and inspiring address.
In the afternoon, Dr. Brown presented “Real Talk: Lessons in Uncommon Sense” to a group of educators from schools across Massachusetts.
This talk encouraged educators to support all students while examining their own implicit biases. He explained the critical role that teachers played in helping him to be successful and gave strategies to help students realize their potential.
The two conferences featuring Dr. Brown supported MPY’s on-going initiative on anti-racism, including diversity, equity, and inclusion. MPY regularly presents webinars and in-service workshops on this relevant and important topic.
About the Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth, Inc.
Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides training, fosters collaboration, and develops programming to increase the health and safety of students. MPY is committed to bringing cutting-edge information and high-quality trainings to constituents and endeavors to provide solution-oriented, community-based, multi-disciplinary approaches to reducing and ideally eliminating risky behaviors for youth.
Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth is governed by a Board of Directors made up of school superintendents, police and fire chiefs, and other community leaders who work closely with MPY staff to deliver this mission.
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