Julia Lord

Julia A. Lord (formerly Elhauge) became an advocate for children with special needs when the youngest of her three children was diagnosed with autism. In 2004, she co-founded the Network of Newton Autism Parents (NoNAP) so that parents of kids with ASD in Newton could find each other to get answers and lobby their school system for appropriate programming. She’s a former member of the Newton Schools Foundation, where she prompted them to remember special needs children. Ms. Lord was active at Mass Advocates for Children for several years, where she co-funded a program to hire a Spanish speaking attorney, and created a mentoring program for SPED mom attorneys looking to switch into special education law, increasing MAC’s capacity for pro-bono cases. Ms. Lord was very active in expanding MAC’s gala capacity and success.  Her last project at MAC was funding an app for non-English speaking SPED parents that would create letters in English to send their schools. Ms. Lord came to the Federation as a Helpline Volunteer. She is excited to be a new member of the FCSN board, where she’s been funding projects related to the website and educational videos.