Marisol Garcia has dedicated her 25-year legal career to advocating for youth at every stage of the cradle to prison pipeline.  Since 2016, Marisol has directed the work of the Commonwealth’s largest child advocacy program – the Mental Health Advocacy Program for Kids (MHAP for Kids). As Deputy Director, Marisol continues as the leader of MHAP for Kids, acts as an HLA ambassador to cultivate partnerships with potential and existing financial and advocacy partners, develops, launches, and guides HLA advocacy efforts, advises existing HLA legal initiatives to help them grow, and works on administrative projects to advance HLA operations. Marisol achieved the mission of statewide expansion for MHAP for Kids, increasing capacity by over 500% and placing attorneys in Family Resource Centers (FRCs) across the state. Working with public interest groups, Marisol leads the legislative lobbying efforts – establishing a budget earmark and receiving over five million dollars in public funding. Within months of assuming her position as project director, Marisol collaborated with key stakeholders to redefine the strategic direction of the program to relocate this diversion program from the juvenile justice system to the FRCs based in the community. Marisol also coordinates ongoing data collection with the evaluation team from Boston University School of Public Health. Marisol oversees the work of the attorneys who advocate for children with unmet mental health needs to receive the care that they require to be successful at school, at home, and in the community. She has co-authored numerous articles for the American Bar Association’s Children’s Rights Committee and has presented on children’s mental health issues at statewide and national trainings. In 2022, Marisol was selected as one of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s Top Women of Law. Marisol joined HLA in 2015 as a mental health advocate. From 2012 to 2014, Marisol litigated before the SSA, representing disabled adults and children. From 1999 to 2011, she maintained her own law office where she specialized in juvenile justice, representing children in civil and delinquency proceedings. During that time, Marisol was also an adjunct professor at University of Massachusetts in Lowell and William James College. Marisol was a Bart J. Gordon fellow and staff attorney at the Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts from 1997 to 1999. She received her JD from Northeastern University School of Law in 1997 and a BA magna cum laude from Providence College 1994.