Joanne Steen

Joanne Steen, MS, NCC, is a board-certified counselor with more than twenty-five years of experience as an instructor and author on grief, stress, and resilience with a specialty in line-of-duty loss.

Joanne Steen is the founder of Grief Solutions, a training company that provides practical training and resources on grief to professional assistance providers who work with the bereaved.

She has worked with more than forty diverse organizations. Her clients have included the U.S. Department of Defense; the Canadian Military Forces; Army Survivor Outreach Services and Navy Gold Star Program, plus a host of federal, state, corporate, and non-profit organizations. She is a past Chair of the Surviving Spouse Advisory Council, Military Officers Association of America (MOAA).

Joanne is the author of We Regret To Inform You. A Survival Guide for Gold Star Parents and Those Who Support Them. (Central Recovery Press, 2019). With Regina Asaro, she coauthored the award-winning Military Widow: A Survival Guide (Naval Institute Press, 2006). Joanne is also a contributing author to numerous works on traumatic grief and military loss.

Joanne possesses an insider’s understanding of the military. She has twenty-five years of experience as a military instructor, the latter fifteen in the area of traumatic grief and casualty assistance. Joanne is the Gold Star widow of LT Ken Steen, USN, a naval aviator who was killed in line of duty during her tenure as a senior military instructor with the Department of the Navy. In her first career, she spent ten years in engineering and management with Johnson & Johnson and General Motors.

Joanne holds an MSEd in counseling from Old Dominion University and a BS in engineering from Rutgers University. Honors and awards include the 2010 Chairman’s Award, Military Officers Association of America; 2009 Alumni Fellow, Old Dominion University, Darden College of Education & Professional Studies, and 2007 Distinguished Author of the Year, United States Naval Institute.