Phew, this is a hard one for me: It is with profound appreciation, sadness, and good wishes that we announce the retirement of Mary Jo Harwood, LSW, DNCCM from the Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI). Her last day will be June 10th.
Mary Jo started part-time at TSI in 2017, bringing a wealth of experience to the TSI’s expanding work. In prior roles, she was a special education teacher, worked in victim services, had experience in conflict mediation internationally, and was also an independent trainer. I could not have imagined then what an indelible mark she would make on the work of TSI in her 7 years as a Program Coordinator.
While I could list her many concrete contributions, the way in which Mary Jo went about her work stands out above all else.
We did our first Risking Connection Basic training together in Cincinnati and it was immediately apparent how her warmth, honesty, deep respect for participants, and her humor allowed her to connect with and strongly lead a group. By the end of Day 3, a mandated training had transformed into a unifying, moving, deeply personal learning experience for participants. While RC trainings don’t always go this way (as all you Trainers well know), these “love-in” trainings were more common than not when Mary Jo was leading them. Most of TSI’s business comes from word of mouth and I know that many client agencies were referred to us specifically because of their experience with Mary Jo as their Program Coordinator and Faculty Trainer.
Mary Jo has always made it a priority to take care of her colleagues. When life happened to us – a family death, a child struggling, an illness – Mary Jo would send a text, a card would arrive in the mail, or she would say a kind word during a staff meeting. When you were on the road training, Mary Jo would check in to see how you were doing. She was quick to share an appreciation of a colleague.
Mary Jo is driven by a deep commitment to her values. She helped TSI craft our vision, mission, and core values of relationships, whole systems, community, depth, solutions shortly after she arrived. She believes strongly in conflict resolution, teaching our RC community about it, and urging our TSI team to face rather than avoid conflict. Perhaps most importantly, she believes in confronting racism and discrimination in how she lives as a person and in the work she does. She was integral in fostering conversations about race in our team, prioritizing hiring staff of color, and integrating the value of anti-racism into the Risking Connection curriculum. Co-leading the 2024 revision of the RC training and training materials is a legacy that will live on at TSI for years to come.
I know I speak on behalf of everyone at TSI when I say THANK YOU, WE WILL MISS YOU, WE LOVE YOU, and BEST WISHES for a long, healthy, and happy retirement.