Mission
Safe Space Radio inspires courageous conversations, reduces stigma, shame and isolation, and fosters compassion and public health.
Founded in 2008, Safe Space Radio is a public health intervention on the air. We have broadcast over 300 episodes and received numerous national awards for mental health, stigma reduction, social justice and radio production. The first season of our four-part miniseries, Can We Talk?, broadcast nationally in May 2019 for Mental Health Awareness Month. Our second season broadcast in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021. Two long-form specials, Out-Takes, on suicide prevention among LGBTQ teens, and Still Here, on caregiving and dementia, both broadcast nationally in 2016. Our podcast is used in training programs for healthcare professionals, therapists, and teachers as they learn to address the needs of underserved populations.
Our Staff
Dr. Anne Hallward is the host and founder of Safe Space Radio and a board certified psychiatrist in Portland, Maine. She is passionate about creating spaces for people to talk about the subjects they hide, rather than leaving people isolated with their worst struggles. Formerly on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, she co-designed and taught courses on death and dying, cultural humility, sexuality, and psychiatric interviewing. She’s also published on death and dying, cultural identity and bias in medicine, sexuality, and causes of hunger in the Philippines and Bangladesh. Anne is the recipient of the Ulrich B. Jacobsohn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians, the Jeanne Spurlock Social Justice Award from the Association of Women Psychiatrists, and an Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She has also been recognized for her work in radio with a Gracie Award for Best Host of a Local Radio Show. Anne speaks internationally on emotional courage, stigma and shame, traumatic silence, and voluntary vulnerability as a form of leadership.
Anne’s Safe Space Radio Manifesto
What makes you feel most alive? For me it is when we finally can talk about the thing we haven’t been talking about. That is such a thrill: it makes you feel that, yes! it’s going to happen, and things are going to change. Things will feel real. Read and listen to the complete manifesto here.
Anne’s Ted Talk at TedxDirigo
Mary Quintas is Safe Space Radio’s Senior Producer. Her previous work includes hosting and producing (Press)ed – a podcast about democracy and the media for The Public’s Radio, and creating and producing The Junction, a Murrow-Award-winning radio series about the revitalization efforts of an Alabama community.
Sara Powers is Safe Space Radio’s Education Coordinator. Sara is a resident physician in psychiatry at Maine Medical Center. She is a native Mainer and returned to Portland for residency training after attending Harvard Medical School. She began her work at Safe Space Radio while still in medical school, researching stigma about mental illness. She is interested in promoting education and discussion about difficult subjects
Sophie McNulty is Safe Space Radio’s Assistant Producer. She is a recent graduate of Stanford University, where she studied English literature and digital humanities. There, she fell in love with audio storytelling, winning a Braden Storytelling Grant to produce a podcast on the relationship between religion and mental health. In the fall, Sophie will attend the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, specializing in radio and podcasting.
Kirby Veevers is Safe Space Radio’s Director of Community Outreach. She began working with Safe Space Radio inApril, 2020 to support several initiatives including Safe Space Radio’s Mental Health Outreach Project in libraries, universities, coffee shops and doctor’s offices, as well as promoting our continuing education programming for health professionals, and our educational podcasts for students in the health professions. Kirby is also a professor in the department of Population Health at Hofstra University in New York.
Jem Hodsden: Sound Engineer July 2008-April 2013
Jem (they/them) is currently a trainer working in state government; their areas of focus are DEI, public benefits, and immigration. They have a B.A. and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine. Jem has spent most of their career working in social services and volunteering for nonprofits in Southern Maine, like they did for WMPG when mixing the sound for Safe Space. They enjoy hiking, gluten free baking, competitive arm wrestling, and spending time with their family.
Jim Russell: Program Consultant December 2012-August 2022
Jim was our “program doctor” as a consultant, mentor and friend. He was an award-winning journalist and creative radio/TV producer whose experience encompassed newspaper, commercial and public radio, television and digital media. He served as the first Executive Producer of NPR’s “All Things Considered, and invented NPR’s Marketplace. He won every major award in broadcasting including a national TV Emmy, two George Foster Peabody, two duPont Columbia, two Ohio State, and two National Headliner Awards. Jim helped Safe Space Radio grow from a weekly half hour interview show on community public radio in Maine, to an independent producer of hour-long nationally broadcast specials.
Gabe Grabin: Producer April 2013 – Jan 2017
Gabe helped to transform Safe Space Radio from a live interview show into an edited weekly podcast/broadcast with narration and recurring segments. He wrote our tagline: “The show about the things we would struggle with less if we could talk about them more.” Gabe co-produced and sound-designed our first two hour-long specials broadcast by dozens of NPR stations nationwide.
Shea Shackelford: Senior Producer and Editor April 2015-Jan 2017
Shea was Senior Producer and Editor for Safe Space Radio’s first two hour-long specials. He was senior producer for the Teaching Hard History and Queer America podcasts from Learning for Justice, the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He created the Place + Memory demonstration project with NPR’s Weekend Edition. For over a decade, he taught as a summer producer-in-residence at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies. Shea is a Third Coast International Audio Festival award winner and his audio documentaries have aired on numerous shows in the US and Canada.
Maggie Murphy: Program Coordinator September 2014 – May 2017
Maggie Murphy, LCSW got her start in radio in Northern Argentina, where she completed a Fulbright research project on the power of radio to catalyze social change. Upon relocating to Maine, she joined Safe Space Radio as Program Coordinator, and went on to serve as a member of the Creative Advisory Committee from 2018 to 2020. Safe Space Radio’s example of the power of narrative to connect and heal continues to inform her work as a private practice therapist.
D.G.: Program Director July 2017-March 2020
Dana helped to write and edit 7 of our nationally broadcast specials, she helped design our new website, and create our logo. She came up with the idea for our QR code table tents in libraries, doctors’ and therapists’ offices, and cafes around Maine and the Northeast. Dana helped with grant applications, creating our logic model, and all of our fundraising and outreach efforts. Prior to joining SSR, she taught college English and writing in schools and the prison system, and recorded oral history across the U.S. with StoryCorps. She is now a registered nurse.
Brit Hanson: Senior Producer Nov 2017-June 2019
Brit Hanson was the Senior Producer for the first season of Can We Talk? creating four of our nationally broadcast specials. She is a journalist and producer who has reported all over the country and now works for NPR’s science desk. Her work has earned multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards, awards from the Associated Press and Public Media Journalists Association and the Public Service Journalism Award from The Society for Professional Journalists. Hanson is a proud alumnus of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Public service journalism is her life’s work.
Our Board
Anne Hallward, MD, Executive Director
Phil Walsh, President, is executive director of Maine Initiatives.
Marilyn Bronzi, LCSW, Treasurer, was initially a guest on Safe Space Radio, experiencing the freedoms that come with publicly telling one’s story in the hope that the liberation spreads. She has worked in both mental health and insurance, as well as many non-profits and foundations. Marilyn has a gift for seeing what is outside the center of attention, such as what is not being said, or does not fit, and what might be possible.
Libby Gordon, RN, DN, is a retired school nurse who recognizes the impact of emotional health on health and life experience. Libby is committed to helping patients of all ages and their families discuss difficult subjects of mental and physical health and to guiding conversations with patients about difficult subjects.
Kate Manahan, LCSW, Secretary, is a creative person who loves to play in many mediums. She is a radio producer and host of a community radio program called What Mama Wants about how mother earth is impacted by toxic chemicals. You can often find her outside floating on the river in her kayak, watching the birds and turtles being birds and turtles.
Heidi Love, is the author of “Knowing Acts: Engage in Healing,” and the co-founder of two marketing firms. She is also a sailor.
Thierry Ndabahagamye is an actor, and film-maker from Burundi who makes films to reduce the stigma of mental illness, and to address public health concerns.
Lucy Norvell, fosters relationships to advance the work and visibility of nonprofit organizations that enrich the lives of children and families. She currently serves as the Coordinator of Programming and Communications for the Scarborough Public Library.
P Lynn Ouellette, MD, is a psychiatrist who has been in private practice for almost 30 years with a special interest in women’s mental health and the impact of child bearing. She believes that it is the relationship, which supports truth telling and compassionate listening, that is the most powerful tool of healing in psychiatry. She is also a mother, an artist and photographer, and a regular volunteer in Kenya.
Joelle Rutembesa is a public health student with a special interest in mental health. She is originally from Rwanda, where she worked for CDC programs and with children with mental disabilities.
Our Creative Advisors
Libby Gordon, Samar Post Jamali, Sara Lennon, Sandy Lovell, David Moltz, Maggie Murphy, Thierry Ndabahagamye, Prisca Niyonzima, Alice Spencer, Phil Walsh.
Board Members Emerita:
Kevin Carley, Layne Gregory, Sara Lennon, Laura Mazikowski, David Moltz, Mary Townsend, Donna Galluzzo
