February 8, 2026
Lynn Bishop presents a pen. “I bought this pen, and it means a lot to me. Hold it until tomorrow,” she instructs. At a table in The Roasted Granola Cafe, she explains how to boost the self-worth of people with mental health conditions.
“They would feel like they matter. They could look at the pen and think, ‘That’s important to her, and she thinks I’m going to come back tomorrow.’”
These small acts of trust are impactful, she says.
“When we treat them like people who have value, they act like people who have value,” she said.
After 35 years of working at the Edinburg Center – a Bedford-based human services agency for adults and children with mental health conditions and developmental disabilities – Bishop, 62, retired as executive vice president. The Arlington resident’s tenure at the center was part of her lifelong love for advocacy.
“My mother says I was born a feminist,” Bishop said.
As a child, her father’s work as a diplomat transported Bishop, her mother and two siblings to New Zealand, Lebanon and West Africa. Bishop said that her time spent abroad helped her to better empathize with the Edinburg Center’s immigrant staff, many of whom hailed from regions like Haiti and East Africa.
“I think staff found me to be unusual because I understood when they said that they lived in a village,” she said. “I knew they didn’t mean the village of Newton.”
After graduating from Vassar College in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and spending a year in Belize with the Peace Corps, Bishop reunited with a college friend in Somerville. The friend – who taught two nonspeaking children on the autism spectrum at the Language and Cognitive Development Center in Jamaica Plain – struggled with retaining staff and encouraged Bishop to visit.
That visit sparked her interest in special education.
“I fell in love with both of them,” she said. “They were as different as night and day, but to me they were such big puzzles.”
Bishop remained at the school for three more years before working as a vocational developer at the League School for Autism in Newton. At a work training, she met Donna Mills, who was then associate director of the Edinburg Center. In 1991, Bishop joined the center as the qualified intellectual disability professional program director.
“There wasn’t [a patient] that I found too difficult or too challenging,” she said. “I got the reputation in the area as a person who would take the people that nobody else wanted.”
After a center employee made a racist comment to another staff member, Bishop cofounded the center’s Diversity Committee in 1999. The committee’s programming centered around cultural competency and current issues, such as same-sex marriage.
With many employees from countries that criminalize same-sex relations, Bishop, who now worked in management, felt confident that people would eventually overcome their prejudice.
“A lot of the staff came from countries where gay people were killed and we were telling them that they had to accept us to work at The Edinburg Center,” she said. “I used my position of privilege to say, ‘They’ll get to know me and my wife, and maybe they’ll change their minds,’ and they did.”
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, Bishop organized virtual town halls so people at the center could process their feelings together.
Edinburg Center CEO Patti Maguire praised Bishop’s efforts.
“There was just so much pain in our community and Lynn created a place for people to bring that,” she said.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Bishop also launched Meaningful Whole Life. The initiative allows the individuals to collaborate with staff – referred to as “Champions” – to create individualized day programming that caters to the individuals’ passions. The program supports roughly 300 activities ranging from fishing to crochet. Bishop says the program is “one of [her] proudest achievements.”
“We basically said, ‘We’re not sure that you’ll be able to achieve your wishes, because some of us never do, but we can help you towards the path,’” she said.
Bishop taught the people she worked with how to write letters to their state representatives and produced short videos about individuals. She also co-created the center’s annual Legislative Breakfast to connect state lawmakers with the disability community. In 2023, she received the Ruth M. Batson Advocate of the Year Award for her dedication.
Bishop emphasized how individuals with developmental disabilities are infantilized or ignored in many scenarios, such as during interviews with media personnel and at doctor’s appointments. She said this treatment makes self-advocacy challenging.
“People with developmental disabilities get treated like children,” she said. “Awareness about people with autism is relatively recent, and I think people dismiss them and some people are scared.”
Bishop continued her activism outside of the center by working on political campaigns, including that of Arlington’s first openly gay selectperson, Dan Dunn, in 2009 and Gov. Maura Healey’s runs for attorney general and governor.
Outside of campaigning, Bishop maintains a close relationship with Healey and her sister, Tara. After being diagnosed with throat cancer in December 2024, Gov. Healey called to offer assistance.
After undergoing a laryngectomy, Bishop couldn’t speak for roughly a year before receiving a voice prosthesis device a couple weeks ago. She said losing her voice was an eye-opening experience.
“I’ve worked with people who couldn’t hear and who couldn’t speak because of developmental disabilities, but I never knew how discriminated against the voiceless were,” she said.
Bishop’s cancer diagnosis prompted an early retirement from the Edinburg Center.
Kathleen Doherty, the former executive vice president of the Edinburg Center takes Bishop to her doctor’s appointments and eats lunch with her every week. She said Bishop is perpetually positive.
“When I could be the black cloud of doom, she is that bright light.”
In retirement, Lynn enjoys painting and spending time with her four dogs, Ms. Rita Bean, Gus, Jazz and Domino. She also frequently visits the center.
Bishop calls her healing journey a boat cruise. During a dinner at Barcelona Wine Bar in Cambridge, she invited her loved ones to support her as members of “Lynn’s Village.”
“I was going to go on a cruise. If you were part of my cruise, you’re part of Lynn’s village,” she said. “Lynn’s Village was a huge success. Probably this spring, the cruise is coming into harbor parking.”