Dr. Jennifer Burns began working in Lynnfield as an external consulting psychologist in March of last year. Her impact was so significant that by January, the town made her its full-time psychologist — a move that seemed inevitable given her contributions and vision for the community.
In the 20 years she has worked in behavioral health, Dr. Burns has held a variety of positions in the industry, starting at an entry-level job with a women’s and children’s facility in Tewksbury and advancing through the ranks. She has served as program director for a recovery center in Lawrence and as a clinical supervisor for Beth Israel Lahey.
Her expertise has also led her to her true passion — working directly with communities to improve their responses to mental health and substance abuse issues. In fact, for her master’s thesis, she created the Merrimack Valley Prevention and Substance Abuse Project, a nonprofit community outreach coalition.
“I want to say about 2012 is where I started to dive into community work and deal with the macro instead of the micro,” she said. “That’s where my passion is, being able to collaborate and pull different people together, different disciplines together, for us to all work together for the health and being of the community and the individuals and families.”
Dr. Burns started in Methuen, where she worked with the police department to develop the Community Addiction Resource Engagement (CARES) initiative. She has also worked with the cities of Lawrence and Lowell to help develop outreach and public safety programs, collaborating with institutions to better prepare the communities to respond to crises they may face.
Now, as the Lynnfield town psychologist, Dr. Burns has brought that experience with her to address the town’s needs. She and the Lynnfield Health Department (LHD) work closely with organizations such as A Healthy Lynnfield and institutions such as the Lynnfield Police Department (LPD).
Last year, Dr. Burns worked alongside the LHD and LPD to collect data through a community needs assessment. From there, she has been able to utilize money from the opioid settlement that began funneling into communities in 2023 to address those needs.
“We’re going to have some community conversations geared around some of the topics that came up in the community needs assessment… One of the domains that we need to cover for the opioid funds is prevention,” Dr. Burns said. “We have just a bunch of training coming up, and I also work to assist A Healthy Lynnfield, so I’m pretty much overseeing some training in mental health and first aid.”
This collaboration with A Healthy Lynnfield has already yielded positive results for the community. For instance, 76 seniors from Lynnfield High School completed their training in the Teen Mental Health First Aid certification program.
On her end, Dr. Burns has been training the nurses and paraprofessionals at the district’s schools and holding a class with the local Rotary Club chapter. They are now considering opening those sessions to more interested community members.
“First aid mental health is more about identifying and how to have conversations,” she said. “It’s how to identify what’s happening with individuals and to stay present and aware of the people that we come into contact with.”
The other type of training Dr. Burns conducts is the recovery coach academy, which is focussed on paths of recovery — something she stresses is not “cookie cutter for anybody.” She also emphasizes that being a recovery coach is about harm reduction and engaging with the person who needs help with substance use.
“There’s a huge component with motivational interviewing, where it really helps us to engage an individual where they are,” she said. “It meets the individual where they are, understanding what stage of change they’re in for us to be able to understand and to be able to engage and talk.”
In her experience, the majority of people who enter a treatment facility are not doing so because they want help, but rather because someone close to them has compelled them to seek treatment.
Thus, being a recovery coach is about knowing that an individual is in the very early stage of recovery and having conversations with them based on that knowledge. This is especially important for police officers and emergency medical personnel responding to behavioral crises.
“Why we’re doing it specifically for first responders is because a lot of times they’re the first person on scene. It doesn’t mean that our first responders are going to become recovery coaches, however, they’re going to have some tools to be able to understand and have and to be able to talk outside of their technical training.” Dr. Burns said.
Additionally, Dr. Burns works with the LPD and Capt. Christopher DeCarlo on the Lynnfield Community Outreach Team, where she provides aid on calls concerning mental health and substance use crises.
The future for Lynnfield’s new town psychologist holds even more collaboration growth. For instance, she held her first open office hours in February, allowing anyone to walk into the Lynnfield Public Library for a one-on-one conversation with her.
“I want to continue to build healthy, collaborative relationships, and expand our services to the community, being able to provide what the community needs,” she said. “On top of all the amazing things that everybody’s doing, we need to focus on prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery. Those are the four domains that we need to be doing something in. And what does that look like in the town of Lynnfield?”
