PhD, MSW,
Fellow in Thanatology
MISS Foundation CEO and Founder

Dr. Cacciatore is a consummate teacher and professional public speaker specializing in traumatic death and loss. Her area of research focuses on individual and familial bereavement and trauma after a child's death. She keeps a trauma and bereavement blog that has tens of thousands of readers every year.

Dr. Cacciatore was awarded a Fellowship in Thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. She founded the MISS Foundation, an international nonprofit organization, in 1996, two years after the death of her infant daughter, Cheyenne.

She initiated the first statewide multidisciplinary program on compassionate bereavement care and crisis intervention in Arizona. She currently serves on the Unexplained Infant Death Advisory Council, and she is founding member of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation. She served at the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office as a Family Liaison from 1998 until 2004.

Dr. Cacciatore has taught for Glendale and Phoenix Fire Departments and at hundreds of conferences, including the National Perinatal Social Work Conference, Perinatal Bereavement Conference, National Compassionate Friends Conference, Forensic Medical Science Courses, Domestic Violence Prevention Conferences, and the Child Abuse Prevention National Conferences. She specializes in uses humor and analogy to help others understand effective communication, intervention strategy, grief and bereavement, and palliative care. In 1997, she began the worldwide movement, The Kindness Project , featured on the Leeza Gibbons and Oprah Winfrey shows.

She graduated from Arizona State University and the Barrett Honors College, Summa Cum Laude, with both her undergraduate degree in psychology and her Masters in Social Work. Her academic career in 2001 ended with a Truman Foundation Scholarship Award nomination. Dr. Cacciatore received her Doctorate of Philosophy in Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Her most acclaimed accomplishment came in 1999 when she spearheaded the
"MISSing Angels" bill campaign, lobbying the Arizona legislature on House Bill 2416. Arizona is the first state in the U.S. to offer a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth for infants who die during or prior to childbirth. Since then, Joanne has been active in lobbying other states for this important change in public health policy and has been featured in People Magazine’s December 11, 2006 issue, January 15, 2007 issue, CNN, New York Times, Boston Globe, and countless local newspapers and television shows.

Today, she is a professor at Arizona State University in the College of Public Programs.

On a personal note, Joanne has been a vegetarian since 1980. She has her blue belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and Aikido and loves hiking, rock climbing, horses, running, and writing. Her heroes include mentor, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Mohandas Gandhi, and Käthe Kollwitz.

If you ask her how many children she has, she'll reply, "I have four who walk and one who soars."

Awards:

2004 - Woman of Influence
2007 - Sr. Teresa McIntier Community Service Award
2007 - Hon Kachina

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

In Process

Hill, T., Cacciatore, J. , & Shreffler, K. (2009). The impact of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, and child death on marital dissolution. Paper accepted at the Society for the Study of Social Problems conference. Research paper in progress.

Cacciatore, J. (2009). The effects of traumatic, cumulative child death.

Cacciatore, J. , Lietz, C., Fox-Kean, M., Lacasse, J., & DeFrain, J. (2009). Traumatic Experiences and Resiliency Study (TEARS).

Cacciatore, J. (2009). The Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Bereaved Parents.

Cacciatore, J. (2009). Historicultural Examination of Ritual after a Child’s Death: A Qualitative Study.

PUBLICATIONS

Articles in Refereed Journals

Cacciatore, J. et al. (2009). Crisis intervention by social workers within fire departments: An innovative role. Social Work. Revise and resubmit in process.

Cacciatore, J. (2009). Unique stories of women and their families after the death of a baby. Journal of Healthcare Social Work. Revise and resubmit.

Cacciatore, J. , Schnebly, S., & Froen, F. (2009). The effects of social support on maternal anxiety and depression after the death of a child. Health and Social Care in the Community, 17(2), 167-176.

Cacciatore, J. (2009). The silent birth: A commentary. Social Work, 54(1), 91-94.

Cacciatore, J. (2009). Appropriate bereavement practice after the death of a Native American child. Families in Society, 90 (1), 46-50.

Cacciatore, J. , DeFrain, J., Jones, K., Jones, H. (2008). The couple and the death of a baby. Journal of Family Social Work, 11(4), 351-370.

Cacciatore, J. , DeFrain, J., & Jones, K. (2008). Boundary ambiguity and the death of a child. Marriage and Family Review, 44(4), 439-454.

Cacciatore, J. , Froen, F., Radestad, I. (2008). Effects of contact with their stillborn babies on maternal anxiety and depression. Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, 35(4), 313-320.

Cacciatore, J. (2008). Stillbirth: A sociopolitical issue: Affilia, 23(4), 378-387.

Barr, P., & Cacciatore, J. (2008). Personal fear of death and grief in bereaved mothers. Death Studies, 32(5), 445-460. 445-460.

Cacciatore, J. (2007). Effects of support groups on post traumatic stress responses in women experiencing stillbirth. Omega Journal of Death and Dying, 55(1), 71-91.

Barr, P., & Cacciatore, J. (2007). Problematic emotions and maternal grief. Omega Journal of Death and Dying, 56 (4), 329-346.

Cacciatore, J. , & Bushfield, S. (2007). Stillbirth: The mother’s experience and implications for improving care. Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life & Palliative Care, 3(3), 59-79.

Book Chapters and Reviews

Cacciatore, J. (2009). Reviewer for International Journal of Stress Management.

Cacciatore, J. (2008). Reviewer for Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy.

Cacciatore, J. (2008). Olson, D. H., DeFrain, J., & Skogrand, L. (2008). Marriages and families: Intimacy, diversity and strengths (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

DeFrain, J., Cacciatore, J. , & DeFrain, A. (2005). Death. New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Charles Scribner and Sons. Thomson Gale Publishing.

Memberships:

• Golden Key International Honour Society
  
• Psi Chi National Honor Society in Psychology
  
• Association for Death Education and Counseling
  
• International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
  
• American Psychological Association Affiliate Member
  
• American Institute of Healthcare Professionals
  
• Arizona Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee, Former Member
  
  

• Remembering the Dead.
• Facilitating Familial Mourning.
• The Dying Child: Helping Families Facing a Fatal Diagnosis.
  
• The Power of Compassion: A New Attitude in Healthcare
  
• Grieving Children.
  
• Phenomenological Approach to Perinatal Death.
  
• Stillbirth: The Symbiotic Nature of Love and Traumatic Grief
  
• Neonatal Intensive Care Units: Psychosocial Care in the NICU.
  
• Transcending Loss by Using Kindness to Heal Grief.
  
• When a Child Dies: Understanding and Facilitating Familial Mourning.
  
• Stillbirth and Early Infant Death: Working Compassionately with Families.
  
• Cultural Competency and Mourning.
  
• The Microculture of the Grieving Family.
  
• Psychosocial Intervention: Post Traumatic Stress Responses in Women Experiencing
• Sudden Intrauterine Infant Death.
  
• Transcultural Responses in Mourning.
  
• Perinatal Death: Intervention, Etiology, and Pathology.
  
• The Effects of Support Group Participation on Women Experiencing Sudden Intrauterine Infant Death.