A letter from Board President, Derek Watson, and Outgoing Clinical/Executive Director, Josie Sawyer
Cary, NC, February 11, 2022–
From Derek Watson, Chair, Lucy Daniels Center Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of Lucy Daniels Center regrets to announce the departure of Josie Sawyer as Clinical/Executive Director. Josie joined the Lucy Daniels Center in 2015, serving as a mental health clinician from 2015-2019, and as Clinical/Executive Director from 2019-2022. During her years as director, she has solidified and enhanced Lucy Daniels Center’s mission of supporting the mental and emotional health of children in the Triangle area of North Carolina.
Under Josie’s leadership, Lucy Daniels Center:
- Strengthened and expanded Lucy Daniels Center’s children’s mental health services, including the Lucy Daniels School, Farley-Manning Family Guidance Service, SecurePath, Lucy’s Link. and comprehensive outreach and educational programs.
- Led a staff of 35 talented professionals and oversaw the care of hundreds of children enrolled in LDC’s school, therapy, and outreach programs, ensuring stability during the largest pandemic in recent history with unwavering leadership, compassion, and grace.
- Implemented a rapid Covid response program, Lucy Listens, that provided short-term mental health support by a licensed mental health counselor at no cost to help families survive and thrive through the COVID-19 crisis and find resilience, courage and meaning in the most trying of times.
- Initiated Lucy Daniels Center’s first telehealth therapy program, instituted Lucy Daniels School’s first online learning program, and carefully implemented safety protocols to keep students, parents and staff safe and protected, while allowing services to continue uninterrupted.
- Hybridized online and in-person services as needed throughout all programs as CDC protocols shifted to ensure comprehensive and safe programs and services for all children in our care.
- Collaborated with stakeholders throughout the state of NC to expand and broaden access to Circle of Security Parenting Program, helping parents in North Carolina form safe and secure attachments with their young children.
- Facilitated organizational growth in all areas, from service use, to outreach and community awareness, to fundraising, to board development.
Josie leaves the Lucy Daniels Center in a strong position for continued growth and service to our Triangle community. Over the next month, Lucy Daniels Center’s Board of Directors will be conducting a search to find the next Clinical/Executive Director. The Board of Directors, Josie, and the Lucy Daniels Center’s Leadership Team will be performing interim administrative tasks for the organization during the transition, and it is the Board of Directors’ priority to maintain a stable and effective organization. We will share the job announcement as soon as possible and ask you to keep in mind any potential candidates in your community. The listing is posted on our website: https://lucydanielscenter.org/careers/
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Lucy Daniels Center, I extend the warmest wishes to our departing Clinical and Executive Director, Josie Sawyer. While we will miss Josie tremendously, the Board is anticipating exciting possibilities and a hopeful future, building on the positive momentum created as a result of Josie’s leadership.
From Josie Sawyer, MSW, LCSW, Clinical/Executive Director, Lucy Daniels Center
After seven years on staff at Lucy Daniels Center, I recently submitted my letter of resignation to the Board of Directors.
In my time at LDC, nearly three of those as Clinical/Executive Director, I have seen first-hand the transformative impact of its mission and work in the lives of children and families, and it is certainly difficult to say good-bye. I feel privileged to have walked alongside many children and families in various capacities supporting child mental health and education.
I’m incredibly proud to have been a part of the accomplishments that Lucy Daniels Center has achieved over the last three years in conjunction with our board, funders, and partners. I’m also deeply grateful for the relationships I have cultivated during my time as Clinical/Executive Director. We have navigated the trials of the pandemic while maintaining a strong commitment to our mission and continuing services to hundreds of children and families across the Triangle.
I remain deeply committed to the work of Lucy Daniels Center, and I will be collaborating closely with our Board of Directors to help ensure a smooth transition of leadership.
I want to thank the many members of our community who support Lucy Daniels Center, and I am committed to remaining a passionate advocate in helping children live emotionally healthy lives now and in the future.
###
About Lucy Daniels Center – Lucy Daniels Center helps children live emotionally healthy lives through in-depth evaluation and treatment, family involvement and education. The organization is the largest service provider of mental health services in the Triangle, serving more than 700 children and their families yearly and providing more than 20,000 hours of direct emotional and mental health services to children from birth to 12 years old, the time of life when the most effective interventions are possible.
