Marline Francois Madden is the owner of Hearts Empowerment Counseling Center, best selling author of The State of Black Girls, a phenomenal public speaker, and entrepreneur. With over 15 years of clinical experience, she has become a sought-after expert in mental health, trauma, self-care, and girls' leadership. Marline has shared her expertise at dozens of universities, colleges, community organizations, churches and conferences— including the Congressional Black Caucus for Women and Girls. Marline Francois-Madden is creating equity within the mental health space through the execution of self-care driven experiences dedicated to black girls around the world. One million. It’s the number driving Marline’s relentless work as she seeks to build black girls up one after another by way of policy-facing advocacy, holistic therapy, comprehensive education and civic engagement that consistently drives impact and change in mental uplift.
Through the establishment of an evolving safe space embracing every background and experience, innovative projects are executed to expand therapeutic access for girls around the
world.
With tireless determination to normalize mental healing, Marline’s educational leadership exposes fellow therapists to the methods driving private practice success in order to serve more girls in the most conscious, unique and effective way.
Always moving the needle as the Transformative Social Worker, best-selling author, creative entrepreneur, and activist, Marline is unapologetic in her steps to be the champion for
black girls on their journey of self-care, awareness, optimum well-being and ultimate freedom.
She was named by the White House as a Nominated Changemaker at the State of the Women summit during the Obama administration. Her work has been featured on HuffPost, Business Insider, Essence, Hot 97, Fox5, Bustle, Psych Central, and various media platforms.
Marline has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Penn State University and a Masters of Social Work degree from Rutgers University - Newark. She is the Chair of the National Association of Social Worker -Legislative and Social Action committee. She is currently licensed as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of New Jersey.
