Maria Trozzi

Maria Trozzi, M.Ed., is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, director of the nationally renowned Good Grief Program at Boston Medical Center, a consultant to the Child Development Unit at Children's Hospital, and an author. Her credentials and expertise have established her as one of the foremost experts on child and family bereavement in the country. She has provided consultation at Littleton, Colorado (the site of Columbine High School); at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11; and in Grenada following Hurricane Ivan. Since 1991, she has lectured nationally to professional audiences in every major city with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton as a regular faculty member of the National Seminar Series.

Her four-year project at Children's Hospital in New York focuses on designing and implementing a bereavement protocol response for both families and clinicians. Trozzi's approach continues to serve as a national model for trauma and intensive care units.

For nearly 20 years, as director of the Good Grief Program, her training for educators and health professionals has focused on promoting resilience in the face of loss via strategies that strengthen coping skills for families, institutions, and communities.

Trozzi's interest in bereavement expands to the grief families experience when a child is diagnosed with a disability: the "grief that keeps on giving." Her research is focused on identifying grief touchpoints – predictable times in a disabled child's development when parents' grief is exacerbated. Trozzi's model for professionals and parents has taken this grief "out of the closet" for both affected families and the clinicians that treat them.

She is a frequent contributor to both print and electronic media. She has appeared with Dr. Brazelton as co-host of his national television show, What Every Baby Knows, several times as well as several national news programs including Larry King Live, The Early Show, CNN, NBC, and ABC.

Her first book, Talking with Children About Loss, was published by Putnam-Penguin and continues to be an essential reference for parents and professionals. She has authored several chapters in pediatric and academic textbooks.