In September 2020, Diane Snyder Cowan retired as the Director of the Western Reserve Grief Services of Hospice of the Western Reserve after 20 years. In addition to her administrative duties, she oversaw the nonprofit agency’s on-site and community bereavement programs as well as the music therapy and art therapy programs, chaired Hospice of the Western Reserve’s Ethics Committee and the trauma informed end-life-care champion workgroup. A board-certified music therapist, she is also certified in hospice and palliative care administration.
Active in the promotion of bereavement care at local, regional and national levels, Snyder Cowan chaired the Bereavement Professionals community of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s myNCPCO community and served as a member of its Steering Committee for several years. She continues to be an active member of the NHPCO’s trauma informed end-of-life care workgroup.
She has presented at both the regional and national levels and is a leading national expert on the topics of, grief, loss and survivorship, community crisis, trauma informed care and grief following an opioid-related death.
A prolific and engaging writer, Snyder Cowan edited Western Reserve’s Grief Service publication, About Grief, has contributed to the National Hospice and Palliative Organization’s Insights Magazine, and authored a blog on the Hospice of the Western Reserve’s website: hospicewr.org/grief and most recently has been published in the 2019 edition of the Textbook of Palliative nursing from Oxford University Press.