Susan Hess, MSW, LCSW, has served as an adjunct lecturer at the USC School of Social Work since 2010. She teaches graduate courses in trauma-informed care, cultural competency, family therapies, group therapies, individual therapies and evidence-based practice models.

Hess has also served as an adjunct faculty member at California Lutheran University, where she developed and taught marriage and family therapy (MFT) graduate curriculum in domestic violence and child brain trauma. As the director of Intimate Partner Violence Programming at Echo Parenting and Education, Hess offers MSW candidates quality internship field instruction, and she has developed successful MSW internship programs for USC and California State University, Northridge, (CSUN) students. Hess has also written pre-licensure audio trainings materials for candidates taking the LCSW national exam.

Through her private consulting, training and expert witness testimony practice, Hess demonstrates her primary areas of expertise in domestic violence, trauma-informed care, grief and bereavement. She is an avid promoter of cutting-edge research and clinical approaches to trauma-informed practices, and she recently received the Marjorie Braude Award for launching a Trauma-Informed Nonviolent Standards of Care collaborative task force dedicated to implementing trauma-informed care in domestic violence shelters throughout California. Hess earned her MSW from USC. She is a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois and is a certified teacher in nonviolent education and parenting.