School of Social Work - Simmons College

SIMMONS SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK 19
Helping the Hard Cases:
Lynnette Littles ’09 M.S.W.
Forensic Social Worker, MHM Services, Inc., at Bridgewater State Hospital,
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
As a forensic social worker with MHM Services, Inc., at Bridgewater State Hospital,
a facility for incarcerated adults with mental health issues, Lynnette Littles handles a
caseload of 21 men charged with or convicted of crimes of assault.
A difficult population, to be sure, yet Littles says, “I absolutely love my job.”
Perfect match: The men, it turns out, are exactly the
clients whom Littles wanted to help. “They have a
double strike against them: they have mental illness
and they’re incarcerated,” she explains. “They don’t
have much support. But working with them one-onone
often allows them to be more open and to make
a connection.”
A future in forensics: After 20 years in the healthcare
industry, Littles returned to college to complete
her B.A. degree at the University of Massachusetts.
Compelled to move ahead in her career, she decided
to go directly to graduate school and was accepted
at Simmons. Littles’ first-year field placement was
at Solutions for Living, a community-based family
agency. For her second year, she interned at the
Department of Mental Health unit at the Erich Lindeman
Center and the Solomon Carter Fuller Mental
Health Center — and found her calling.
According to Littles, this placement “gave me the
understanding and experience to work in forensic
social work. It helped to strengthen my knowledge
of diagnoses and to feel more comfortable and
confident with recognizing psychiatric symptoms.”
Significant steps: In addition to evaluating clients’
ability to stand trial, diagnosing mental illnesses
and substance abuse, and facilitating attorney/client
communication, Littles runs a violence prevention
group comprised of 10 patients.
Littles’ experience, in fact, has reinforced her hope
for the men: “You never know if one word you say
can change someone’s perception.”