Joseph J. Cozzo President and Chief Executive Officer Buffalo Hearing & Speech Center

Joseph J. Cozzo, is President and CEO of Buffalo Hearing & Speech Center- the country’s largest and most comprehensive free standing diagnostic, treatment and education center for children and adults with communication disorders.  He also serves as a team leader for the Council on Accreditation (COA), a national accreditation body that works to ensure best practice standards for behavioral health programs worldwide.  Formerly the Chief Operating Officer of Baker Victory Services, where he worked with seriously emotionally disturbed and mentally ill children and adolescents, Mr. Cozzo also developed and wrote published curricula for the Child Welfare League of America, for which he continues to provide consultation and training. A staunch advocate for children and families, Mr. Cozzo has given hundreds of keynote addresses and workshops nationally on treatment strategies for working with emotionally disturbed youth, school related issues of at-risk students, effective discipline and parenting, and diversity issues in counseling and therapy.  In the mid eighties, he developed a series of programs dealing with various aspects of adolescent suicide, and he regularly speaks and offers training on the subjects of adolescent suicide, violence prevention, and management of anger and aggression.  Currently a consultant for several public school faculties with the goal of developing effective strategies for working with angry and aggressive youth and transforming classrooms into “connection communities,” he is also studying the effects of “compassion fatigue as it affects urban teachers, and foster parents who work with traumatized children and youth.  Mr. Cozzo has traveled to over 14 different countries worldwide, working with orphans and orphanages and conducting seminars on the effects of long-term institutionalization, post-institutionalized behaviors and reactive attachment disorder in children adopted internationally. Mr. Cozzo speaks out on behalf of children’s rights and is a member of several local community not-for-profit Boards of Directors.  He lives in Williamsville with his wife Diane who is the Director of Community and Parent Relations for the Buffalo Public Schools, and has two children, Heather who is a mom and operates a day care center, and Joshua who is a graduate of Seton Hall University, the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations.