Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, Founder and CEO of Center For Family Connections, is awarded an Aoption Excellence Award

Center For Family Connections announced today that its Founder and CEO, Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, has been selected to receive an Adoption Excellence Award in the category of Family Contributions from the Childrens Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The award will be presented to Dr. Pavao on Thursday, November 6, 2003 in Washington, DC as part of the National Adoption Recruitment Summit.

This award is an honor and a tribute to CFFC, the staff, and all the families and individuals who we have served," says Dr. Pavao.

Dr. Pavao is well-known for her dedication and support of children and families affected by adoption. She founded Center For Family Connections (CFFC) in 1995 to serve families and children whose lives are touched by adoption, foster care, divorce, and other complex family issues. CFFC is a nonprofit, educational, and clinical resource center known for its pioneering work in the adoption field.

Dr. Pavao holds a doctoral degree from Harvard University, and is both a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed marriage and family therapist. She has developed models for training and treatment using her systematic framework, the Normative Crisis in the Development of the Adoptive Family„, and her book The Family of Adoption (Beacon Press, 1998).

She is a Clinical Member and Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, Clinical Member of the American Orthopsychiatric Association (Ortho), and Clinical Member of the American Family Therapy Association. She is a member and past Director of the American Adoption Congress, former Board member of the Open Door Society of Massachusetts, Kinship Alliance in Monterey, California, and Education and Policy Board of Adoptive Families of America in Minneapolis. She is currently on the Practice Board of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York, the Editorial Boards of Adoptive Families magazine and Foster Families Today magazine, the Board of Directors of the Home For Little Wanderers in Boston, and the Adoption Advisory Board of the Child Welfare League of America. Dr. Pavao has received many awards and honors, including The Massachusetts Association for Marriage and Family Therapy award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy (2003), the North American Council for Adoptable Children award for Adoption Advocate of the Year (2001) and Child Advocate of the Year (2001), and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption award for Angels in Adoption (2000), as nominated by Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman Mike Capuano.