BUSSW Alum Danielle Ferrier, CEO of Heading Home, Named 2026 Commencement Speaker
Danielle Ferrier, (SSW ’99) MBA, LICSW, a BU School of Social Work (BUSSW) alum, and current chief executive officer of Heading Home, one of Massachusetts’ leading providers of emergency shelter, transitional, and permanent housing for children and adults currently or formerly experiencing homelessness, will be the featured speaker at this year’s BUSSW commencement ceremony for the Class of 2026.
Ferrier’s social work leadership skills and experience in the human services sector stretches more than 25 years across public and nonprofit sectors. As CEO of Heading Home, she has established the organization as a leading service provider, expanding its reach from serving 1,400 clients in 2017 to more than 8,000 in 2025.
Relying on her clinical expertise, business acumen and experience, Ferrier has progressively strengthened the organization’s clinical and programmatic practice, financial standing and overall reputation throughout her tenure, while improving operations to better respond to urgent community needs.
For example, in May 2023, following the criminal indictment of a shelter provider CEO in the Lawrence area, Heading Home safely and effectively executed a rapid response takeover of a dozen shelters and residences that served hundreds of non-English speaking residents, including dozens of children, and staffed primarily by bilingual, bicultural staff.
More recently, Ferrier deftly positioned Heading Home to take on a frontline role during the Commonwealth’s escalating family homelessness crisis. She leveraged her deeply held social work values to focus on the needs of the Massachusetts residents and newly arriving migrant families, while using her leadership role to influence policy makers, including working with the Governor and her team to ensure that the requisite and appropriate services and supports were available.
She also expanded Heading Home’s Supportive Housing program, which provides access to safe, stable, long-term affordable housing and supportive services for formerly homeless individuals and families with disabilities.
Ferrier has made it her life’s mission to protect those who are most vulnerable, with a special passion for children and child welfare. She is actively engaged with numerous boards and task forces, providing expert counsel around cases related to the clinical impact of foster care and programs designed to work with young-parenting adults, and regularly provides requested insight and expertise on human services and housing to local leaders and media.
Before joining Heading Home, Ferrier was deputy commissioner for Clinical Services & Program Operations at the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families. She spent the first part of her career working in child welfare, developmental disability, and mental health nonprofit programs. She worked as a practicing clinical therapist for more than 15 years, where her training and primary practice focused on “high-risk” children, youth, and families, with a clinical specialty in trauma and attachment. Ferrier was responsible for developing Youth Harbors, an innovative program based in high schools designed to prevent unaccompanied high school students from becoming homeless, and to rapidly house youth who are homeless.
Her work has been recognized with the Outstanding Career in Social Work award from BUSSW in 2024. The award acknowledges and honors a BUSSW graduate who, throughout their career, has consistently demonstrated exceptional contributions to the profession and the community-at-large. Marylou Sudders (SSW ‘78), former secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health & Human Services, nominated Ferrier, noting, “From her earliest days as a superb social work clinician working with children and youth who have experienced trauma and marginalization and learning about brain development, Danielle pivoted that clinical experience into positions of social work leadership in both the public and private sectors for 16 years and in the classroom as a lecturer at BUSSW for 9 years.”
In addition to earning her MSW from BUSSW, Ferrier holds a Master of Business Administration from Simmons School of Management.
The BUSSW 2026 Commencement ceremony will be held Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 4:00 PM at the Walter Brown Arena at Boston University. Graduates will include students from all MSW programs (Charles River campus, Off-Campus, Worcester Hybrid, and the Online program) and doctoral candidates.
More details on the BUSSW ceremony can be found on the school website.