Laura Orlando, project manager at Partners for Our Children, received the 2017 Mary Grembowski Staff Recognition Award at the School’s June 6 employee recognition celebration event.
Laura, who received her MSW from the School, has worked at POC for eight years. Prior to POC, Laura worked for 10 years at the School’s Northwest Institute for Children and Families. For the past three years, she has been the project director for the Strive program, which aims to provide more humane and positive visitation experiences for parents and children in the child welfare system.
Highly motivated with tireless passion and creative energy, Laura is known to contribute 110 percent to the job. She’s been involved in outreach and planning efforts with Strive partners, including Children’s Administration, Family Impact Network and Alliance for Child Welfare Excellence, and has made presentations on Strive to audiences around the state. Her ability to seek out innovative solutions and uncover new information has helped advance Strive’s outreach and funding strategies.
“Laura is an invaluable member of the Strive team,” said Susan Barkan, POC’s associate director of research, in her award nomination letter. “She is a perceptive and adept communicator, both within and outside of our team. Her approach to meeting partners where they are at, with empathy for their position and needs, while simultaneously furthering the goals of the Strive pilot, has been essential in getting the program to the point it is now. Her progress has been exceptional but even more so because she did it with a very small team.”