Duane T. Bowers, LPC

is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Educator in private practice. He is the author of Guiding Your Family Through Loss and Grief, and A Child is Missing: Providing Support for Families of Missing Children, and also hosted the live, call-in internet radio show LET’S TALK IT THROUGH.

As a therapist Duane’s specialty is working with survivors of trauma, child exploitation and trafficking which includes providing support to families of abducted, missing, exploited, trafficked and murdered victims as well as professional staff
working directly in the field. Duane is responsible for the development of support, clinical supervision and training of staff and volunteers for a variety of organizations that deal with these issues in the US and Canada. He is a principle in Project SafeGuard which provides support for the staff of the Exploited Child Division of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is responsible for analyzing child pornography on the internet to assist law enforcement. Duane also provides staff support to the NCMEC Child Sex Trafficking Team. In addition, Duane provides wellness support to the Trust and Safety Division of Tumblr, Flickr and Yahoo, the Maryland State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce, the Alexandria City Police Investigators, International Justice Mission (IJM) field and headquarters staff, Montgomery County Child Welfare Services by creating and facilitating training and support and wellness programs for their staff members. In Saskatchewan province in Canada, Duane works through Caring Hearts providing education and assisting in creating programs focused on trauma informed care, first responder trauma, and supporting families of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. He also serves as a consultant to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada.

As a therapist Duane’s specialty is working with survivors of traumatic death and suicide, which includes providing support to families of abducted, missing, exploited and murdered children through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In addition, Duane serves as a training consultant to NCMEC, and is deployed by them to provide crisis intervention at Amber Alert sites with Team Adam. He also serves as a support consultant and trainer for Team HOPE, a telephone support line for parents of missing and exploited children/by parents of missing and exploited children, and has provided services to AMECO (Association of Missing and Exploited Children Organizations). Duane also worked as a therapist with members of the military and their families through Military Onesource, and assisted families who must identify loved ones at the DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, through the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing.

In Washington DC Duane worked as a therapist with members of the military and their families through Military Onesource, and assisted families who identified loved ones at the DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, through the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing. He also served as the Director of Training and Education at the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing, and was the Senior Director of Emergency and
International Services for the National Capital Chapter of the American Red Cross. Duane spent three months during the summer of 1999 in Macedonia/Kosovo/Albania supervising a family reunification program in camps with war refugees. In September 2001 Duane responded to the Pentagon immediately following the terrorist attack on September 11th, providing support to rescue and recovery workers. In April 2010 he served as the mental health team leader at the University of Miami field hospital following the earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti. Most recently (1/16) Duane responded to La Loche Saskatchewan Canada to provide trauma support to the first responders following a school shooting with
multiple fatalities.

As an educator, Duane teaches seminars nationally, internationally and regionally on trauma informed care, support for victims and families and workers in the field of sexual exploitation and trafficking, as well as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and traumatic loss. He has served as an Adjunct Professor of Counseling at Trinity College in Washington DC, and continues to be an invited guest lecturer for national conferences, as well as for graduate and undergraduate classes of various colleges and universities.

Duane began studying reiki and achieved level I in 1998, and became a Usui Reiki Master and a Seichim Reiki Master in 2005. He teaches reiki classes, and volunteers at Life With Cancer providing reiki sessions to cancer patients.

Published works:

• Bowers, D.T. (2018). Supporting families of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and other missing persons. Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada: Caring Hearts
• Bowers, D.T. (2015). A child is missing: Providing support for families of Missing children. In M.G. Leary, S.W. Cooper, P. Wetterling, D.D. Broughton (Eds.) Perspectives on missing person’s cases (pp. 23-64). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
• Bowers, D.T. (2009, Summer). Supporting your grieving pet. American Academy of
  Bereavement News, 2, 6.
• Bowers, D.T. (2007). A child is missing: Providing support for families of missing
  children. Alexandria, VA: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• Greif, G. & Bowers, D. (2007). Unresolved loss: Issues in working with adults whose
  siblings were kidnapped years ago. The American Journal of Family Therapy, vol. 35, issue 3, pp. 203-219.
• Bowers, D.T. (2005). Guiding your family through loss and grief. Tucson, AZ: Fenestra
  Books.
• Bowers, D.T. (2005) Information for families grieving after the loss of a child, and the professionals who support them. Retrieved February 3, 2005. http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/NC10.pdf
• Bowers, D. T. (2002). Communicating with someone who is grieving. American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), web-site, www.aarp.org/griefandloss/articles/103_a.hml, 1-4.