Joyce Bender, CEO of Bender Consulting Services and President, CEO, and Chair of the Bender Leadership Academy, will receive the Visionary Award from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law at their Annual Awards Reception tonight, September 17th, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The Bazelon Center, where Joyce serves on the Board of Trustees, advocates for adults and children with mental health and psychiatric disabilities.
At the event, Joyce will be honored alongside: U.S. Senator John Fetterman, U.S. Senator Edward Markey, Luke Sikinyi, Director of Public Policy and Public Engagement for The Alliance for Rights and Recovery, Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick: P.L.L.C., and Elis for Rachael. Serving as Emcee of the event will be Co-Anchor of the PBS NewsHour and Peabody Award-winning Journalist, Amna Nawaz.
In preparing to accept this award, Joyce said that “The Bazelon Center is near and dear to my heart, which is one of the reasons I serve on their Board of Trustees, along with the knowledge that their work has and continues to improve the lives of millions of adults and children with mental health and psychiatric disabilities. I’m also incredibly honored and humbled to be part of this year’s slate of awardees that includes disability rights champions at the local, state, and national levels.”
Joyce is being honored for her work in founding and leading Bender Consulting Services, a firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded in 1995, that works to identify and secure employment opportunities for people with disabilities in working with leading corporations and organizations who have committed to making disability rights and inclusion a top internal priority.
As part of the Visionary Award, Joyce is also being honored for her trailblazing work in founding the Bender Leadership Academy in 2018, which began as a volunteer mentoring program in 2001 with the single purpose of helping youth transitioning into the workforce, the organization is now multi-faceted with programming that provides a comprehensive approach to addressing barriers to employment.
In selecting Joyce as this year’s Visionary Award Recipient, Holly O’Donnell, CEO of the Bazelon Center, said that “Joyce is deserving of this award, not only because of her groundbreaking work at both Bender Consulting Services and the Bender Leadership Academy, she is also a member of the disability community who uses her story, national platform, and innovation to propel us forward as we stand with the individuals that Bazelon serves. I’m also, on a personal level, proud to call her a mentor and friend.”
If you have any questions about Bender Consulting Services or the Bender Leadership Academy, please contact Sherry Lapaglia at slapaglia@benderconsult.com.