Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D., LCSW, LMFT, was the Founder and CEO of Center For Family Connections, Inc. (CFFC – est. 1995-2012) in Cambridge, MA and New York. Pavao Consulting and Coaching, and Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training 1982-present
Dr. Pavao has done extensive training, both nationally and internationally. She is an adjunct faculty member in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and has consulted to various public and private agencies, schools, and the court system. Additionally, she has worked closely with individuals, and families created by adoption, foster care and other complex blended family constructions. . She has been Principal Investigator on federal grants around Youth At Risk, Homelessness, Transracial Adoption, and LGBT issues in the community of Aging Out Adolescents/Young Adults.
She has developed models for treatment and for training using her systemic, intergenerational, and developmental framework The Normative Crises in the Development of the Adoptive Family and her book The Family of Adoption has received high acclaim.