Jill A. Harrington, DSW, LCSW is an Adjunct Professor for the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Washington DC Campus as well as a Part-Time Lecturer for Rutgers University School of Social Work.  Dr. Harrington also maintains an active clinical counseling practice in the Northern Virginia Area.  She earned her Doctorate in Social Work from The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice, Philadelphia, PA, and is one of the first published authors on the subject of bereavement in U.S. military families. She has been a practicing social worker for over twenty years and has had a special focus on trauma, loss, and bereavement.  Dr. Harrington is a former Senior Director of Field Research, National Military Family Bereavement Study for Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS), Bethesda, Maryland, and has been a consultant to Columbia University Center for Complicated Grief.  Dr. Harrington is active on many national and international committees and working groups, addressing bereavement, clinical practice, grief awareness, and education.  She is a member of The National Association of Social Workers - Virginia Chapter, The American Association of Suicidology as well as a former Board Member (2011-2014) for the Association for Death Education & Counseling and currently serves as the Chair of the Conference Committee, Concurrent Program.  Dr. Harrington was recently awarded Adjunct Professor of the Year, 2020-2021, from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Washington DC Campus. In her career, she has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.  She is the creator and lead editor of the new, creative textbook, entitled, Superhero Grief: The Transformative Power of Loss (2021) (www.superherogrief.com), published by Routledge.

 

Joyal Mulheron spent 15+ years advising high-ranking politicians, including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former First Lady Michelle Obama, and translating basic science into public policy.  She has enjoyed leading major initiatives for the National Governors Association, the National Academies of Science and the American Cancer Society. She holds a Masters in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and degrees in Biochemistry and English from Virginia Tech. After a series of high-profile death events and the death of her daughter, Ms. Mulheron founded Evermore to change policy, advance research and make the world a more livable place for bereaved families.

 

 

 

 

Tashel C. Bordere, PhD, CT is an assistant professor of Human Development and Family Science and State Specialist at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She serves on the Board of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), Board of the National Alliance for Grieving Children (NAGC), and Advisory Council of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). Dr. Bordere is a former Forward Promise Fellow (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and received the Ronald K. Barrett National Award (ADEC) for her research on bereaved Black youth. Her research, publications, and trainings focus on cultural trauma, Black youth and family bereavement, suffocated grief (a term she coined), and coping. She has a co-edited/co-written book - Handbook of Social Justice in Loss and Grief (Routledge).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sharon Strouse, MA, ATR-BC, LCPAT is a board-certified and licensed clinical professional art therapist and Associate Director for the Portland Institute.  Her art therapy private practice, national presentations, trainings, and practitioner supervision/ mentoring focus on traumatic loss, specifically with parents who have lost a child, suicide bereavement, and military loss/ Gold Star Families.  The theoretical foundations of her group and individual art therapy work are grounded in meaning reconstruction, attachment-informed grief therapy, continuing bonds with the deceased and restorative retelling. She is author of Artful Grief: A Diary of Healing, (www.artfulgrief.com) written twelve years after the suicide of her seventeen-year-old daughter. She is co-founder of The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation (www.krsf.com), a non-profit dedicated to supporting programs that increase awareness of mental health through education and the arts. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James (Jim) Martin, PhD, ACSW, LICSW (Ret.) is a Professor of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College and a recently retired Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with more than fifty years of social work practice. His scholarship and civic engagement address the well being of military and veteran populations. Jim is a recognized national leader in the area of military family services. A retired Army Colonel, Jim’s twenty-six-year military career included clinical, research, as well as senior management (command) and policy assignments. Jim was the senior Social Work Officer in the Persian Gulf Theater during the first Gulf War. He received his MSW from Boston College and his Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a graduate of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Social Work Child and Family Studies Fellowship Program, the Army’s Command and General Staff College, and the Army Management Staff College. Jim was the recipient of the 2014 University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work “Distinguished Alumni Award for Social Work Practice” and the 2015 “Distinguished Alumni Award” from Boston College School of Social Work. In 2016 the National Association of Social Workers Foundation recognized Jim as a Social Work Pioneer. “Pioneers” are described as “social workers who have explored new territories and built outposts for human services on many frontiers… having made important contributions to the social work profession and to social policies through service, teaching, writing, research, program development, administration, or legislation.”