Our Mission

The Heathmere Center’s mission is to cultivate and nurture stronger communities on Boston’s North Shore by empowering the voices of youth and the historically marginalized through creative dialogue programming. We work with community partners and local institutions to develop collaborative programs that incorporate dialogue, the arts and anti-oppression education in order to promote inclusion, equity and belonging.

Why “Heathmere”?

Of Scottish ancestry, Ann first began creating her garden at her home in Hamilton, MA, by planting a couple of small patches of heath around her house. A local grounds person told her that it would be impossible to grow heath in the harsh New England climate. Undeterred, Ann set out to tend, nurture and cultivate her heath, which eventually grew and spread to surround her home, integrating itself with its easier-to-grow cousin, heather. The small patches of heath became a vital component of her expansive, fecund and diverse garden. “Mere” is the Scottish word for water. Since her property overlooks Chebacco Lake, she called her home, “Heathmere.”

For High Schools and Colleges:

We work through extra-curricular programing to provide facilitated dialogues and deliberations on issues of concern to students in a way that helps integrate dialogic practices into their community. We also offer facilitation training for students to help them serve as on-going resources for the school community. While our approach aims to go beyond typical “talking-head” or “expert” approaches to difficult issues, dialogue and deliberation can supplement current programming that takes a more top-down, informational approach.  Whether the issue is gun-violence, substance use, mental health, sexual orientation or gender identities, we help schools build the capacity for students to listen to and talk with one another. Our facilitated approach does not aim at consensus but focuses on learning how to listen and talk with one another so as to avoid polarization and enhance community connections. Where there is interest, we also partner with local artists to bring a creative and fun dimension to vital dialogues that are connected to a community event.

For Community Organizations:

Are the youth and young adults in your organization wanting to go deeper in terms of how they talk together about difficult topics? Are they hungry for transforming their concerns into civic action? Are they looking for a way to share their passions with the wider community? Are you looking for creative ways to strengthen the voices of youth and young adults to help them become more civically engaged and stronger self-advocates? The Heathmere Center provides facilitation services, including training and consultation, for youth and young adults who want to learn how to have better conversations to sustain the change they believe in. We also work with local artists to design events that celebrate and strengthen communities.

Specific programming options:

• Single dialogue for a pre-existing group (e.g., a student or teen club) that wants to go deeper with one another and/or use dialogue to address leadership issues (1-2 hours)

• Single dialogue on a hot-button topic (1-2 hours)

• Series of dialogues around an issue (or issues) of more significant communal concern (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc. multiple 1-2 hour sessions)

• Dialogue facilitation training for up to 15 students (2-6 hours of training, 2 hours dialogue)

• Deliberation using a pre-written Issues Guide (1-2 hours)

• Training youth/young adults in how to prepare an Issues Guide based on community research and how to facilitate a deliberation (10-12 hours over a semester)

• Creative “dialogic” event in collaboration with an artist/group of art students (1 hour +)

• Film/Theatre/Art exhibition followed by a dialogue (2 hours +)

• Community celebration with dialogue ( 1 hour +)

In February 2018, a Board of Directors was established and in November 2018, the Board hired Lauren Swayne Barthold, who currently serves as executive director. Heathmere is a 501(c) 3 non-profit.

Dr. Ann Ferguson (PhD, LLD) is a former Professor of English Literature at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. She spent 55 years sharing her love for literature, writing, theater, and art with 2,000 students in nearly 500 classes. Ann was born in Foxborough, Massachusetts on July 18, 1930 and graduated from Foxborough Highschool in 1948. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois in 1952.

Ann served as a Teaching Fellow for a year at Wheaton College upon her graduation. By 1955, her love for stories took her to both Boston University to earn her doctoral degree and to Gordon College to teach English Literature full time. After teaching for five and a half decades, Dr. Ferguson retired from Gordon College on May 15, 2010.

Several years after retiring, Ann was presented an honorary degree – Doctor of Humane Letters. Throughout her tenure, she served as Department Chair, Director Chair, Faculty Senate, and in other various committees. In 1956, she helped to start a theater program, and produced the first three-act play in Gordon’s history. Ann directed several plays in the Drama Division.

During her free summers, she participated in European seminars as a lecturer in European countries. She even studied Russian literature during a sabbatical after 20 years of teaching. She is proficient in Russian, Gaelic, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. Ann also served several decades as an organist at First Baptist Church in Foxborough.

Ann approaches gardening much like a fine painter approaches painting. With a steadfast vision, relentless patience, and the principle that there is always more to improve upon. When choosing plants to put in her garden, Ann has an all-inclusive mentality. Nearly every plant that is raised at the nursery or growing wild near Heathmere is welcome. Ann even transplants wild ferns and moss into her garden from the surrounding woods. Every plant can be a part of the garden because every plant is effervescent and beautiful in its own way.

Ann maintains extensive knowledge of many different techniques in gardening, and her vision for Heathmere has focused mostly on English shade gardens. She preaches that an English garden is a bustlingly “social” place. It should be so packed with plants that all you can see are flowers and leaves, and all the different plants should be encouraged to mingle amongst each other. Ann’s garden is a diamond in the rough, an oasis in the desert, a breath of fresh air, and reflects her vision for Heathmere itself: all are welcome because diversity is what makes the garden most beautiful and full of life.

Lauren Swayne Barthold

Executive Director

Lauren’s (MCS, MA, PhD) interest in dialogue came through her work as a philosophy professor. Her theoretical pursuits propelled her to explore the practice of dialogue and over the past several years she has received training in a variety of different approaches to dialogue and deliberation.

She was involved in a multi-year, multi-institution grant with Essential Partners to study how dialogue in the college classroom can cultivate humility, conviction, and civic engagement. She has also been part of the Kettering Foundation’s year-long Research Exchange for Centers for Public Life, which helped provide direction in the co-founding of Heathmere. She spent a week at the University of Michigan to learn Intergroup Dialogue, an approach she currently uses to bring a racial justice and equity lens to her work with college students.

She teaches ethics at Emerson College and recently published her third book, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square: Civic Dialogue (Palgrave 2020). Her practical and theoretical interests make her thrilled to bring creative and innovative dialogue programming to help youth cultivate their civic voices. She and her family have made Beverly their home since 2006.

Judith Oleson, founding Board Member, passed away on June 10, 2023, from leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. Judith was a beloved friend to many of us and her personal and professional support for Heathmere was crucial to its success. We miss you, Judith, but your legacy of using dialogue as a form of conflict transformation continues through Heathmere’s work!

Judith was Co-Director of the Program on Religion and Conflict Transformation at Boston University School of Theology, where she also taught courses in Transitional Justice, Reconciliation and Conflict Transformation.

Her research and writing focused on the reconciliation processes between Indigenous Communities, Governments and the Church for years of child removal policies that resulted in cultural genocide in the US, Australia, and Canada. She was also interested in the relationship between individual and collective healing and cross sector partnerships for social change in post-conflict communities.

Before coming to academia, Judith served for almost thirty years as a community practitioner; a school social worker, assistant director for a number of nonprofits, and Executive Director of a Family Services Collaborative. Due to her leadership in cross-sector partnerships for social change, Judith was honored as a BUSH Leadership Fellow, enabling her to attend the Kennedy School of Government where she studied leadership and advanced mediation/negotiation.