Joyce Will Be Women’s History Month Speaker
Laura Joyce will be the guest speaker for the 2022 Women’s History Month Symposium sponsored by the St. Mary’s County Commission for Women.
Ms. Joyce is the executive director at the Southern Maryland Center for Family Advocacy, a position she has held for 20 years. She has worked in the nonprofit human services field for nearly 40 years and was a member of the Leadership Howard County Class of 1991. Before joining the center, she served as the executive director for several other nonprofits in the human services and mental health fields.
She has worked extensively as a grant-writer, securing millions of dollars in new funding for services for marginalized populations. She worked as a co-author and ghost writer of non-fiction self-help books throughout the 1990s. In her earlier work in the human services field, Ms. Joyce provided direct services to individuals with chronic psychiatric disabilities living in supported housing. She was one of the early staff members of the groundbreaking Montgomery County Crisis Intervention Team, a collaborative, on-site model for teams now found nationwide.
Ms. Joyce earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Maryland. She was the only scholar in the Division of Arts and Humanities to be granted a Master’s Degree with Distinction. In her years with the Center for Family Advocacy, Ms. Joyce has served several terms as the Family Violence Coordinating Council chairwoman for St. Mary’s County.
She was a founding member and longtime chairwoman of the Multidisciplinary Case Review Team from its inception in 2010 until 2017. Ms. Joyce is a member of the Calvert and Charles County Family Violence Coordinating Councils and numerous other boards and committees.
As an approved peer reviewer for the Office of Violence Against Women at the Federal Department of Justice, she has reviewed grants for the Maryland Victims of Crime grant program, the Survivors of Homicide grant program, and for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants program for the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Protection.
Ms. Joyce raised her three sons in St. Mary’s County and is looking forward to meeting her first grandchild, a girl, and being part of the village that raises her to be a strong-willed, independent, and compassionate leader in Southern Maryland and beyond.
Do you know an exceptional woman in St. Mary’s County?
The St. Mary’s County Commission for Women is still accepting nominations for Tomorrow’s Woman and the Woman of the Year.
The event is a way to recognize the amazing women in the community and is a fundraiser for the Jane Hale Sypher Scholarship Fund. The event will be held Thursday, March 24, 2022, at the Chesapeake Building at 41770 Baldridge St. in Leonardtown, with awards at 6 pm and a reception to follow.
Space is limited, and reservations are required. For more information, click here.
