McAuley Nazareth now affiliated 
with Mount Prospect Academy

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

LEICESTER – Religious sisters were given honor when a service to youth – which they started – took a new turn this week.

McAuley Nazareth Inc. in Leicester, an outgrowth of a Sisters of Mercy ministry, became officially “affiliated with” Mount Prospect Academy at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Both serve troubled youth through education and residential treatment.

McAuley Nazareth is a residential treatment center for boys from age 5 to 15, who live there, attend school there or both, said Minda “Mindy” de Medeiros, the new executive director, who is a member of St. John Neumann Parish in East Freetown. (Girls attend the day program.)
“Mount Prospect Academy is an alliance of nonprofit academic and behavioral health companies” in New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont, says the website mountprospectacademy.org/.

Jeffrey Caron, MPA president, who grew up in Catholic schools and belongs to Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in New Hampshire, said that, with Nazareth, the MPA “family” has five different nonprofits.  

MPA will run McAuley Nazareth, keeping the name and same basic program, to provide a safe, nurturing, caring environment for the young people, Mrs. de Medeiros said.

Mr. Caron said he would welcome Sisters Janet Ballentine and Carol Kell – Sisters of Mercy of the Americas who worked there for decades, then were board members until Tuesday – to be on the new board or just attend board meetings.  

“You can work here as many hours as you like. … Your legacy will be alive here,” he told them Tuesday when Nazareth and MPA representatives met in Leicester. Sister Janet symbolically handed over the keys to him.

“I’m sharing these keys, but I’m not giving them up,” she told him. “We’re happy to continue to share with you in any way that we can.”

Paul O’Connor, president of the outgoing Nazareth board, asked Sister Janet to open the gathering with prayer, and she sought God’s blessing on those taking on the ministry. Mr. O’Connor gave recognition to her, Sister Carol and the Sisters of Mercy in general, among other people.

“We stand on some pretty broad shoulders,” Sister Janet said. “All the sisters who lived here, ministered here, have been with us from above.”

It has been “a leap of faith” getting to know MPA leaders, whom she found have a philosophy of care for young people like Nazareth’s, she said. Now, with the affiliation, she’d like to do “a leap of joy.”

Sister Carol recalled God telling Isaiah to listen until he could listen with his heart. She told MPA representatives, “I would ask that you do [that] with your staff and with the children.”

“Our kids are lucky that they’re here,” Mr. Caron said. “You’re loved here. … You’re relevant here. … And we’re the lucky ones.” He said God told him to visit when Nazareth contacted MPA, and that MPA will take ideas from there to its other nonprofits.  

Tuesday’s gathering included a retirement party for Nazareth’s former executive director, Sonya Abdien. Her successor is Mrs. de Medeiros, who once worked in residential treatment and most recently was a senior vice president of operations for American Health Associates.
“It’s a privilege to have this position,” Mrs. de Medeiros told The Catholic Free Press. She said her father started a residential treatment program like Nazareth in Connecticut. She received some schooling there and was also educated in Sisters of Mercy schools.

“When you come on this campus [at Nazareth] you see the history, you feel the history,” she said, adding she is in awe of the sisters and what they have done there.

The Sisters of Mercy founded Nazareth in the early 1900s, bringing to Leicester boys from their St. Gabriel’s Orphanage in Worcester, where the girls remained.  

In 1958 Msgr. Edmond T. Tinsley, now deceased, came to Nazareth Home as a chaplain.
“He was the one who really helped us develop a program for children … who’ve experienced trauma,” Sister Janet said. With foster homes and parents living longer, there was less need for an orphanage, so the ministry transitioned to boys with special needs.

The sisters continued to operate McAuley Nazareth Home for Boys after it became an independent, not-for-profit agency in 1967, according to The Catholic Free Press accounts. McAuley was added to the name in honor of Sisters of Mercy foundress Catherine McAuley.  
In 2003 the sisters transferred control of the corporation to the Worcester diocese. Nazareth was to operate as before, remain an independent agency, and receive the same amount of financial support from the Bishop’s Fund as it had previously.  

Later, Nazareth separated from the diocese, when no longer using the diocese’s services, Sister Janet said. She said it was a nonprofit corporation owned and operated by its board when MPA took over Tuesday.

Sister Janet said she came to Nazareth in 1965, and was a teacher, a social worker, then executive director from 2003-2010. After that, she retired, and was a board member until this week.  

Sister Carol said she came there in 1958, served as a nurse and a child care worker, retired in 2005 and later was on the board.

Nazareth will have its own identity and culture, different from other MPA non-profits, Mr. Caron said.

“It’ll be similar to the culture the sisters want it to be,” he added. It will have a “religious feel.”  
He said he had the old chapel, which was being used for storage, cleaned. (Sister Janet said it wasn’t being used as a chapel and had been deconsecrated.) Mr. Caron plans to make it into a space that can be used as a chapel if needed, as a tea room for the sisters, and as a gathering place for the students.  

Boys in one of MPA’s other non-profits are to build benches for Nazareth’s Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, he said, giving Nazareth students space for quiet reflection and to meet with therapists, and the sisters can spend time there.  

“We’re below our capacity” at Nazareth, Sister Janet said. “Since the pandemic, it’s been very difficult getting staff. We have a staff to student ratio.” Nazareth can take only as many students as it has staff to serve. But Mr. Caron hopes to bring in more boys and staff members.