PEABODY — Dozens of family, friends, lawmakers and social workers came out to a candlelight vigil last night at Buckley Field to remember and honor the life of Stephanie Moulton, who was killed last year, allegedly by an ill patient at a group home in Revere where she worked.
"Stephanie was the glue that held our family together for a long time and now that she's not with us ... it's been very hard," said an emotional Tracie Novack, Moulton's aunt.
As much as the night was about Moulton, who was a Peabody resident and would have turned 27 yesterday, the event was to show resolve in reforming a mental health system that workers say leaves them vulnerable to the kinds of attacks that took Moulton's life.
"I did the exact same work as Stephanie, and this could have happened to any one of us," said Dennis MacDonald, the president of the private sector of the Local 509 Service Employees International Union. "We need to hold (lawmakers) accountable, because we need more safety in the workplace."
There are several measures working their way through the Legislature, including one called Stephanie's Law, which would make it mandatory for group homes to provide workers with a panic button that they could use to alert authorities if they were in a dangerous situation. Leading the fight is Moulton's mom, Kimberly Flynn, who for the past year has pushed lawmakers for reforms like Stephanie's Law.
"After this law gets through, there will be more changes, I can promise you. People are going to get real sick of us," Flynn said last night. "Stephanie was too good a person to have died and sacrificed everything for nothing."
The law is in committee now, and Flynn is determined to get it passed. She urged the crowd to call and write the governor's office in support.
"We're doing what we can do here. We're making noise, but it comes down to the public," she told members of the large crowd, each holding a lit candle to remember Moulton.
In addition to Stephanie's Law, the Department of Mental Heath created a task force shortly after Moulton's death that came up with 17 recommendations to improve safety, among them, a smaller staff-to-client ratio, more funding, better oversight, better training and better safety measures, like panic buttons. So far, not much has changed.
"We're still waiting for those reforms," said Susan Tousignant, the local president of the service workers union. "But we are making progress."
As a show of solidarity, similar vigils took place last night with social service workers in Springfield and New Bedford.
"Her name is going to change things," Flynn said of her daughter.
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