Executive Director
Patrice P. Austin
Founder/Chief Execitive Officer
Hearts and Hope, Inc.
Patrice P. Austin is a graduate of both Barry University, where she earned her M.S.W. in Social Work and Syracuse University’s Utica College where she earned her B.S. in Child Life Psychology. She founded Hearts and Hope, Inc. in 1994 and serves as Chief Executive Officer. She is a nationally certified Trauma and Loss Consultant and Loss School Specialist and in October 2001 she received Certification as an Advanced Bereavement Facilitator, awarded by The American Academy of Bereavement. In 2003 she received her certification in Thanatology: Death, Dying and Bereavement from the Association of Death Education and Counseling. Ms. Austin has twenty seven years of experience and training, specific to dying, death and bereavement with an additional focus on sudden traumatic loss. She has served families in the Palm Beach County area as a school-based counselor with the 45th Street Mental Health Center, was hired to develop and execute the children’s bereavement program at Hospice of Palm Beach County, and as the Child Life Coordinator at West Boca Medical Center where she developed, initiated, planned and implemented the Child Life Program in 1991.
Ms. Austin also planned, developed and maintains the Hearts and Hope, Inc. program model. She was instrumental in founding the local chapter of the Association for Death Education and Counseling and served as Vice-President of that chapter for the year 2000 - 2001 and continues to serve on the Board of Directors. She is the recipient of the 1999 Eckerd Salute to Women Award and was nominated for the 2006 Athena Award and the 2008 Executive Women of the Palm Beaches 25th Annual Women in Leadership Award.
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