Susan Harrison graduated from Edinboro University with a BA in criminal justice in 2000, where she was a scholar athlete and member of the women’s swim team.  After working for a few years doing behavioral interventions with a wrap-around agency, she moved to Morgantown, WV to pursue her MSW and MPA degrees.  While in school, she was a graduate teaching assistant for the social work department.  After graduation, Susan became a therapist for the Monongalia County Youth Services Center and worked at the Monongalia County Child Advocacy Center as the Coordinator of Interview and Community Services. While in Morgantown she met and married her husband Jeremy.  With the opportunity for Jeremy to move home to Marshall County, Jeremy convinced Susan that the Ohio Valley would be where they could put down roots and raise a family.

Over the past 12 years, Susan has led and grown the CASA for Children Inc. organization to include 4 counties (Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel and Tyler Counties), 2 Court Jurisdictions and serving more than 400 children each year.  In 2010, Susan and her husband founded Helping Heroes Inc., a program providing a ‘hand up’ to veterans needing housing stability assistance in the Northern Panhandle of WV. She is a member of the WV State Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Children, the lead for the Marshall County Partners in Prevention Team and a trainer of the Mandated Reporting, Making a Difference Curriculum. In addition, Susan has taught social work classes at West Liberty University each year since 2012. Susan and Jeremy reside in Glen Dale and have a son Evan, now 10 years old.

A fun fact about Susan is that she is a triathlete at 40 (+)years old!

“A foster/adoptive parent once told me: 'you saved this kid' I don't know that I believe, I ALONE did or could do anything to save him, what I did was love him. When we look for the good in the children on our caseloads, it makes it easier to help find their forever family. I loved this kid, I introduced him to a family that will love him forever. I believe the potential is there for CASA volunteers to save kids, not always from their abusive homes, but sometimes we are saving them from a broken system. The connections that we make with our kids, their support systems, their schools... our job is to help put the pieces back together or in some case design a whole new puzzle. Our job is to work together with all the messiness that is today's child welfare system and somehow hope and pray that we have made the right choices, made the right recommendations so that in the end our children don't just survive but thrive. ”

- Susan J. Harrison MSW, MPA, LGSW

Executive Director CASA for Children, Inc.