Mary Robinson
In this episode, Mary shares about her father’s death and the traumatic events that followed. And how she and her brother, teens at the time, down a path of challenging behaviors. She said, “We are not bad kids; we were just sad kids.”
Mary Robinson, MA, CT, is the Executive Director of Imagine, A Center for Coping with Loss located in Mountainside, NJ and the Founder and former Executive Director of Good Grief located in Morristown. She has over 35 years of business, management, technical, and training expertise in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors. Leaving the corporate world in 1997 to volunteer and work full-time in the field of children’s grief support, Ms. Robinson is committed to creating communities where children coping with loss get the support they need to thrive, be resilient and grow up emotionally healthy. Working and volunteering in the field of children’s grief support grew out of Mary’s own personal experience of loss as a child. Her commitment is to ensure that no child grieves alone and that children in grief grow up emotional healthy, resilient and able to lead meaningful and productive lives.
Mary has a BA in English, an MA in Applied Psychoanalysis and is a Certified Thanatologist. She is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling and The National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Alliance for Grieving Children, and is President of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis. Mary was one of the Ten CNN Heroes for 2019.
Prior to working in the field of children’s grief support Mary spent 14 years at Prudential Financial, first as a System Analyst and then for five years worked in Corporate Community Relations where she managed the company’s volunteer programs and helped give away money to nonprofits as Chair of the Employee Grant Making Committee for the Prudential Foundation
