Keynote Speaker
Maria Trozzi, M.Ed., is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, a consultant for the Child Development Unit at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and Director of the nationally renowned Good Grief Program at Boston Medical Center. Her credentials and expertise have established her as one of the foremost experts on family resilience and loss in the country.
She is a frequent contributor to both national print and electronic media and academic publications, lending her expertise to a variety of situations families face that involve change, loss and transition, including Sesame Street and the Arthur series. She has appeared on CBS’s The Early Show, Good Morning America, and Larry King Live!. With America’s favorite pediatrician, she has often appeared as co-host for the weekly Lifetime national series, “What Every Baby Knows” .
Her first book, TALKING WITH CHILDREN ABOUT LOSS, Putnam/Penguin, was acclaimed by professionals and parents; such as, ” …Terms like ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘innovative’ have been trivialized by constant overuse. In this case they are truly deserved.” Stan Turecki, M.D. author of The Difficult Child.
For fifteen years, she has lectured nationally with Dr.T.Berry Brazelton on an annual ten-city tour to early childhood and health care audiences across the United States.
She keynotes dozens of national conferences each year primarily involving health care, funeral service, education, social service and early childhood professional and parent audiences.
Hospitals, organizations, and city officials often call upon Trozzi in times of crisis, both locally and internationally. She was asked to work with the traumatized community of Chechnya, Russia, in the aftermath of their terrorist attack on school children; asked by the Ministry of Health to train and support pediatric professionals and educators in the aftermath of the hurricanes in Granada. She was flown to Littleton, Colorado, after the Columbine High School shooting to administer crisis management consultation to the parents, caregivers, and educators of Columbine High School. Immediately following September 11th, she worked with families and schools at Ground Zero and in Boston organized a comprehensive program of counseling and support for 9/11 families in Massachusetts.
In collaboration with the Arnold Gold Foundation and Children’s Hospital of New York, she designed and implemented a comprehensive bereavement protocol response for both families and medical clinicians. Trozzi’s approach will potentially serve as a national model for NICU, PICU and ERs.
Her interest in promoting resilience expands to the grief families’ experience when a child is born or diagnosed with a disability: the grief that keeps on giving. Her recent research interest focuses on exploring particular stresses and training educators and health providers to be responsive. Her on-going consultation to the Autism Consortium focuses on training professionals to amplify their effective support of families with children who were newly diagnosed.
Recently, Maria received the Humanitarian Award from Boston Theological Society for her contributions to the field.
She lives in Boston and West Yarmouth and maintains a clinical practice dedicated to issues of loss.