Local hero: Diane Williams
By MATT HARPER
SPECIAL TO DENVILLEROCKAWAY THIS WEEK
Diane Williams was born to help people.
"My own mom inspired me," she said. "I think that she kind of made us think beyond ourselves at a very young age."
Diane Williams
Williams is the Morris County director for Family Intervention Services, a private, nonprofit organization providing crisis intervention, therapeutic counseling, case management, education and support to New Jersey children and families. She oversees the work done out of the agency's Denville office.
Williams, who joined the agency in 1996, said she was attracted to the agency's philosophy: "I knew when they described what the agency's beliefs were and its vision, that it sounded like it was something that I wanted to be involved in.
"It was about making families stronger, that it was about making communities stronger and that by building those strong families it made those strong communities, and that's what I really liked about it."
At first, Williams worked primarily with families in which children were at risk of being removed from their homes, in an attempt to prevent that from happening.
"It was really intense," she said. "It was a great learning experience, that's for sure." Years later, she continues to value all the experiences that have brought her to this point.
"I think my previous work enables me to be empathic to how difficult this work is while at the same time knowing how important this work is," Williams said. "Even though I'm the director, I still will go out on home visits, and I'll supervise counseling sessions. I try not to get too far away from it, because I think it gives me perspective and I don't want to ever lose that connection to the families and kids that we're working with."
Williams said she gets great satisfaction from seeing the positive impact of the agency's work: "One of our biggest roles is to build hope for families that things are going to be better, that this is maybe what your situation is right now, but other families have gotten through it and you can do it, too."
Outside of work, Williams is a licensed clinical social worker who lives in Roxbury and is an adjunct professor at Montclair State University in its Masters in Child Advocacy program. In her free time, she has coached her son's youth soccer team and continues to play herself, as a member of the Morris Meteors.
She also recently gave time to help build the Imagination Station playground at Roxbury's Horseshoe Lake.
"I wasn't there everyday, there were certainly people who spent more time there than I did," she said, "but it was a very meaningful experience for me to be a part of building something that my children and other children in the community can enjoy."