Executive Staff
Steve Sweatt, LPC/LMFT
Clinical Director
Steve Sweatt, Community Grief Support Clinical Director, works with support groups, individuals, couples, and families struggling with a wide variety of issues following the death of a loved one. Steve is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) with more than 41 years of experience. He directs CGS programs and services, counsels clients, and supervises contract counselors, interns, and volunteers.
Steve’s expertise encompasses grief counseling for individuals, couples, and families, as well as crisis intervention. He has a Masters of Education in Community and Agency Counseling from The University of Montevallo and trained in bereavement counseling with Dr. Alan Wolfelt at the Center for Loss and Life Transition. Steve serves on the Professional Advisory Committee for the Department of Counseling and Leadership, University of Montevallo. He was Founding Director and Clinical Staff Chaplain, Pastoral Services, at St. Vincent’s East (formerly Medical Center East), a post he held for 17 years. He is an ordained Baptist minister.
Catherine Pittman Smith
Administrative Director
Erin Slaughter
Events & Marketing Manager
Support Group Facilitators
Jan Owen, ALC
Jan is a counselor who specializes in grief and bereavement care. She brings almost twenty years of experience in pastoral care, leadership development, team building, volunteer management, and teaching to her work as a counselor. She has recently opened Back Porch Counseling to help loss survivors in Huntsville and the North Alabama area.
Jan has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alabama, earning a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Leadership Studies. She received her Master of Arts in Education with a concentration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Alabama as well. She has also received training in bereavement counseling with Dr. Alan Wolfelt at the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, CO. Jan is an ordained Baptist minister.
A loss survivor herself, Jan lost her first husband and her mother in recent years. She feels a calling to walk with and care for bereaved individuals and has worked with loss survivors both in the United States and abroad in several countries. She is now remarried and is the mother to three adult children. She also has her dog, Ruby, who helped her survive after her loss. Jan enjoys traveling, reading, stand-up paddle boarding, walking on the beach, and Alabama football.
Sarah Grace Stevenson
Having lost both of her parents by the age of 25, Sarah Grace is passionate about bringing healing to the grief community in Birmingham. She has personally experienced how Community Grief Support can truly breathe new life into a devastating situation, and she is thrilled to watch others find hope in their own grief journeys. Grace is a graduate of the counselor education program at University of Alabama at Birmingham, with a concentration in Marriage, Couples, and Family Counseling. She is now pursuing licensure with the state of Alabama as a Marriage and Family Therapy Intern, under the clinical supervision of Rachel Sullivan, LMFT.
Dr. Larry Michael, ALC
Dr. Larry Michael currently serves as the Pastor for Adult Ministries and Parish Associate at South Highland Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to this, he served as Executive Director of Alabama Grief Support Services, Inc. Before that, Larry served over thirty years in pastoral ministry, leading congregations in five different states and in England.
He taught as an adjunct professor at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, has written educational curricula, sermonic series and articles for various periodicals, and authored a book on leadership (Spurgeon on Leadership, Kregel Publications, 2003, 2010). He has just completed a book titled A Necessary Grief: Essential Tools for Leaders in Bereavement Ministry, to be released by Kregel Publications in February, 2015. Dr. Michael is a leader with a wide berth of grief-related experience, having walked alongside many individuals and families who journeyed that path in his various ministries. He is a recognized public speaker and educator in many areas, and noted for his inspirational presentations.
He is an ordained minister, holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland (College Park, MD), Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Kentucky).
Kristan L. Walker, LCSW
Kristan is a support group facilitator for the Loss of Parent, Grandparent and Sibling Group at CGS. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Alabama and is a licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker.
Since 2015, Kristan has worked full-time as the director of Outreach and Social Worker at Trinity United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to working at Trinity, she practiced social work in both inpatient and outpatient medical settings. She has been a group facilitator for CGS since 2017.
