Lyn Morris, LMFT
Interim Chief Executive Officer
Lyn Morris, LMFT has been appointed to Chief Executive Officer, effective June 1, 2022. Currently she is the interim CEO and was recently the Chief Operating Officer, overseeing all operational, clinical and administrative functions of the agency. She is a highly accomplished Executive Leader and Licensed Therapist with 20+ years of experience and is dedicated to serving communities where poverty or stigma limits access to care.
Lyn joined the agency in 2000 as a Program Director for Adult Outpatient Services. In 2005, she became the Division Director for the Suicide Prevention Center, and a leading advocate in the field of suicide prevention. In 2013, she became the Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations overseeing Adult, Child/Family, Substance Use, Residential and Suicide Prevention services. She earned her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University and has been a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist since 1999.
She is a results-oriented leader with proven success in managing multiple county, state, and federal contracts and budgets to maximize revenue and clinical services. She is also skillful in cultivating strong relationships to secure funding through grants and donations. She has demonstrated excellence in creating high performing, mission-driven teams and has supervised the training and development of hundreds of employees and volunteers, while fostering a culture of engagement and professionalism. She is a recognized national expert in suicide prevention and an innovative leader in developing nationwide training and curriculum and influencing public policy.
She has testified before the California Legislature and secured $4.3M of statewide suicide prevention funding for all California Lifeline Centers. She also established the California Suicide Prevention Network (CSPN) in collaboration with 10 statewide crisis centers to help build local capacity in suicide prevention and to encourage widespread adoption of best practice programs, interventions, curricula and protocols.
She collaborated with Suicide Prevention Center co-founder Dr. Norman Farberow on a chapter in the book Grief After Suicide: Understanding the Consequences and Caring for the Survivors, which was written by Drs. John McIntosh and John R. Jordan and published in 2010. She was also a lead author on the Survivors of Suicide Attempts support group curriculum which has been shared with mental health professionals in all 50 states and 36 countries and the Teen Survivors after Suicide support group curriculum.
Her passion and dedication to suicide prevention comes from personal experience. Lyn Morris is a survivor of suicide having lost a cousin in 1999 and a close friend in 2004.