About Joan

Joan E. Haley, M.Ed.

Background

Joan Haley has over three decades of experience teaching leadership skills to parents, teachers, physicians, students, healthcare professionals, community leaders, nonprofit and business professionals and others. My failures (and successes) have taught me well. I have paid attention to what excites and informs me about human behavior and creativity and what disturbs me, and have learned from both.

What has influenced my thinking most of all is working directly with people who are doing the work in organizations and communities. Over my career, I know that I am most comfortable getting out there and talking to and learning from the people. Desk jobs have never suited me.

I have a particular interest in leadership and believe there are unrecognized leaders everywhere and that leadership skills are teachable. My beliefs are based on workshops in Transactional Analysis, Workshop Institute in Living Learning, Coro Women in Leadership, Human Development Program, Compression Planning®, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Effectiveness Training, Values Clarification, Unconscious Bias, and more, as well as the many mentors I have had along the way. Most of all, my take on leadership comes from my experience and interviews with many exceptional people and what they do to positively influence others for the greater good.

Biography

With the mindset of an entrepreneur and the heart of a community activist, Joan Haley has more than 30 years of experience in the nonprofit sector and has contributed to the development of change makers and transformative leaders in communities, businesses, non-profit organizations and educational institutions by providing practical skills for taking action. Her goal is to assist people to change their behavior for the better and the world around them.

With a core passion for equity, inclusion, diversity and empowerment, Joan served as the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Schweitzer Fellows Program where she worked with graduate students refining leadership approaches to providing services to disadvantaged citizens in southwest Pennsylvania. With a dedication to closing the gaps in health, healthcare access, education, social and environmental justice, she also served as the Clinical Director for Southwest Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center and was the vice-president of the statewide Consultation and Education Council for the PA Community Mental Health System.

Joan Haley holds a Masters Degree in Adult Education and Training from the University of Pittsburgh. Actually, an ABD (All But Dissertation – but that’s a long story). With extensive experience in the fields of adult education, training and development, Joan has taught leadership training to professionals, lay people and volunteers and is an experienced curriculum writer, public speaker and fundraiser.

As an educator at heart, Ms. Haley developed a train-the-trainer model for community leaders to provide communications and parenting classes in their communities. Joan Haley founded the Parenting and Life Skills Institute and was a founding board member of HEARTH, transitional housing for women and children located in northern Allegheny County. Her published article, Group Process Formula – a participant-centered approach, has provided a tried-and-true approach for leading effective groups no matter their size or purpose. Joan has taught on the graduate level at Slippery Rock University, University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University.

Having served on several non-profit boards including the Children’s Cancer Center, Southwest Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center and Winchester Thurston School, Joan Haley has a soft spot in her heart for the dedication, challenges and benefits nonprofit professionals and board members face. She is an avid reader of contemporary fiction, lover of Blue Grass and Classical music, a potter of many decades and lover of children everywhere.

The following is a sample of organizations where Joan Haley has provided training: