Melissa Larocque

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT MELISSA LAROCQUE

Understanding the complexities of childhood and family trauma and how to bring an end to this and stop the cycle has been the focal point of my passion and career\'s work. I started my career in residential care working primarily with teenagers in group homes who were all involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice system. Following graduate school, I spent 3 years doing child protection work for the state of NH investigating reports of abuse and neglect. The experiences of seeing and being a part of a family\'s most difficult and traumatic episodes of their lives was an incredible learning opportunity to understand first hand the micro level systems of families as well as the macro level systems that surround them. In 2016, I took a position as the Program Director of Dover Children\'s Home (DCH) and then helped create a position as a Quality Improvement Specialist to support the agency\'s first accreditation process. With my tenure at DCH, we had achieved a three year \'CARF\' accreditation with no recommendations and proudly served youth in a trauma informed environment without the use of restraint or seclusion. I left the agency in 2024 with the role as Director of Operations. In my time within those roles, I had become a \'TBRI\'(trust based relational interventions) practitioner,\'MANDT System\' trainer and presenter at the 2023 \'Association of Children\'s Residential Centers\' annual conference. In 2025 I began as the Executive Director of Salem Family Resources where I can now support the mission and efforts behind family strengthening work. Personally being an intergenerational cycle breaker and helping supporting others healing from their trauma and giving people the supports they need to increase protective factors to their families has become a central part of \'knowing my why\' for the work that I do.