Our Founder
Terri Waibel, MSW, LCSW, FT is a licensed psychotherapist, a Certified Fellow in Thanatology through the Association for Death Education of Death Education and Counseling, a certified provider of Grief Affirming Practice®, and an Advanced Certified provider of Compassionate Bereavement Care® who has been working and volunteering in the field of social work for over 20 years. In addition to her work with SWIGTS, she is the founder and clinical director of Center for Compassion , a multi-provider therapy practice located in Chandler, Arizona whose primary focus is supporting the traumatically bereaved. Terri is simultaneously honored and heartbroken to support grievers and proud to call herself a grief activist. She is dedicated to this work in memory of her older brother, Brian and her beloved and beautiful child, Kyndrid.
Terri is the founder and Education Director of the Southwest Institute for Grief and Trauma Studies. She developed the innovative therapy practice approach, Grief Affirming Practice® and was selected as the 2025 Healthcare Innovator of the Year by Phoenix Business Journal, a 2025 Woman Achiever in Healthcare by the Arizona Capitol Times, and the 2023 Arizona Social Worker of the Year. In 2025 she was also given Special Recognition of Distinguished Service to the Social Work Profession after her advocacy efforts to pass SB1036, the Social Work Compact in the state of Arizona. Terri’s dedication to civic engagement extends to several community organizations such as the ASU School of Social Work as an internship field supervisor, a member of the Arizona Social Work Action Alliance & a grief consultant to several local therapy practices.
Our History
The Southwest Institute for Grief & Trauma Studies (SWIGTS) is a training institute that was born from the lived experiences of systemic failures within the behavioral health system that exist as a result of inadequate training, education, support, and experience. Following a culmination of the founder's personal and professional experience, she found a lack of well trained professionals who were capable of supporting people facing ineffable emotional pain. SWIGTS is increasing access to leading edge grief and trauma education so that all professionals in supportive helping roles have the skills to help in the midst of profound human suffering.
Our Values
Humilty | Wisdom | Experience
Integrity | Leadership
Our Vision
All professionals in supportive helping roles will have the skills to serve those in the midst of profound human suffering.
Our Mission
Our mission is to close the gap in grief and trauma education for helping professionals and the community by increasing access to leading edge training, education, support, and consultation services that better equip them to support those enduring grief and trauma.
Experience is, for me, the highest authority.
No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as ... experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.
~ Carl Rogers ~
