Address
Organization / Affiliation
Mentor
Biography
Mary D Bishop, LMSW believes every social work position throughout her career prepared her to become the Texas Health and Human Services’ Person Centered Practices Team Lead prior to her retirement in January 2022. Over her career she has partnered with those living in Intermediate Care Facilities in Michigan, Iowa, and Texas; directed a children’s shelter, supported those within nursing communities, hospice, home health, and elders needing behavioral health supports. Mary taught “Contemporary Social Issues” at two prisons for a Western Texas Community College and was an Adjunct Field Liaison for the University of Texas Steve Hicks School of Social Work in 2022. Mary is humbled to have been able to assist a Holocaust survivor in developing his one page description as a survivor and someone who needed in home supports. Her former agency provided foster and adoptive home studies, and counseling to abused and neglected children and their non-offending parent. Mary served as Texas Legislative Aid to a House Member and over 21 years with the State of Texas in various advocacy roles. Mary is honored to have worked closely with National Center on Advancing Person-Centered Practices and Systems (NCAPPS) as part of the first cohort to receive technical assistance while leading the Agency’s transition to become more person centered, being a part of the first Racial Equity Learning Collaborative. Mary currently is a member of NCAPPS’ Person-Centered Advisory and Leadership Group. These experiences has allowed Mary to present with NCAPPS at the HCBS conference, The Learning Community for Person Centered Practices’ Portland Gathering and co-presenting on the NCAPPS “Person-Centered Systems Change” webinar held June 2021. In March of 2023, Mary launched her newest company, Equity Through Human Empowerment. On a personal note, Mary’s life experiences have offered her the opportunity to be a mother, grandmother, and great grandmother of those who are BIPOC, her growing up with domestic abuse and substance abuse, living within kinship care and in foster care. Mary sees these experiences as giving her first-hand knowledge, understanding, compassion, drive and fight for social justice for all humans and believes Person Centered Thinking is for all, not just humans.
Unfortunately my Spanish and American Sign Language is not where it needs to be to to be considered bilingual.
Focus Areas
Trainer Certifications
