Photo: Hallie Leo
Medical students in the T.H. Chans School of Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School have played an integral role in shaping the Foster Children Evaluation Services (FaCES) Clinic, located on UMass Chan’s Worcester campus since 2018, advocating for increased educational support, seeking grants for autism evaluations, and helping provide medical and mental health care for Worcester children and teens in foster care.
“The FaCES Clinic has evolved from its founding 20 years ago because of medical students and their input,” said Heather Forkey, MD, professor of pediatrics and director of FaCES, who said that more than 10,000 children and teens have been evaluated by the FaCES staff since November 2003. “The work we do is truly impacted by student energy and perspective.”
Because if its location on the UMass Chan’s campus, the FaCES Clinic is a prime setting for student volunteers to work with local children and teens in foster care.
Medical students have made an impact at the FaCES Clinic for nearly a decade, most notably improving education services for children in foster care. Due to student input, the clinic hired an education navigator to support foster parents and child welfare workers, connecting kids with education resources. Last year, the medical students noticed that 59.8 percent of students in foster care graduate high school in four years versus 88.4 percent of all students in the state who graduate on time. After realizing this patient population wasn’t meeting educational benchmarks, students applied for a grant to add an educational advocate at FaCES to address education policy and law. In 2025, as a result of student volunteer observations, FaCES launched a dedicated autism evaluation resource for children in DCF custody, in collaboration with autism specialists from UMass Chan.
Third-year medical student Venuri DeSilva has been advocating for children in foster care, creating informational brochures about children in foster care for the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in December.
“To be involved in FaCES as someone who’d like to be a pediatrician and work with this population is empowering,” DeSilva, said. “As students, we can go through medical school feeling disempowered about what we can and can’t do because health care, education and the justice system can be heavy, but seeing people make good change inspires me.”
At FaCES, children and teens receive comprehensive medical evaluations, including immunizations and medications. All patients receive developmental, mental health and trauma screenings, and have access to psychiatric evaluations and management, while some are connected to community mental health counselors. Caregivers receive support to address patients’ educational needs. Although the number of children in out-of-home foster care has decreased in recent years, the demand for services at FaCES continues to rise.
“Many of these children face unmet physical health needs and are at a significantly higher risk for chronic illnesses compared to their peers not in foster care. The trauma that leads to foster placement deeply disrupts a child’s sense of safety, and without stable, nurturing relationships, their mental and developmental growth is at risk,” Dr. Forkey said.
More than 8,000 children in Massachusetts spend the holiday season in foster care and nearly thirty percent spend it in group homes, according to Forkey. Year round, FaCES staff provide gifts to every patient who comes to the clinic, donated by medical students and other generous benefactors.
