Misty Hart, MS BCC
Misty Hart, MS BCC, is a trauma-informed vocational counselor, board-certified coach, independent trainer, and founder of both Unbound Institute and Daughters of Grace, a ministry dedicated to identity restoration and healing. Based in Newport, Vermont, she works across counseling, coaching, and community leadership to support individuals overcoming opioid use disorder, trauma, and systemic barriers to employment. Through her work with the State of Vermont, she helps clients rebuild stability, confidence, and purpose by guiding them into meaningful, higher-wage career pathways.
With more than 20 years of experience in human services, Misty’s career spans child protection, family services, recovery coaching, and vocational rehabilitation. Early in her career, she worked in high-intensity child welfare roles before transitioning into vocational counseling to focus more deeply on hope-centered, forward-moving support. She now leads a growing statewide initiative supporting individuals in recovery, expanding services from a small pilot into multiple counties, while integrating trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing, and identity-based coaching.
Misty’s professional philosophy is rooted in the belief that people are not defined by their past and that healing begins with restoring identity, dignity, and possibility. She combines clinical insight with faith-informed principles, somatic awareness, and practical employment coaching to help individuals move beyond survival into long-term transformation. Recognized as an award-winning advocate for recovery and a certified coach through the National Board for Certified Counselors, she is widely respected for her compassionate, truth-centered approach to helping people rebuild their lives and communities.
• Certified Rehabilitation Counseling
• Board Certified Coach
• Certified Recovery Coach
• Organic Master Gardener
• Certified Clinical Master Aromatherapist
• Salve Regina University
• Springfield College- M.S.
• Springfield College- B.S.
• Commissioner's Award for work in human services
• NBCC (National Board for Certified Counselors)
• HOPE facilitator through Tufts Medical Center
• 350.org
• National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy
• Unbound Institute
• Daughters of Grace
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to just not giving up. I think hope is what kept me going - having hope somewhere that it was gonna get better and that days would look different. I finally realized that happiness is kind of a trap. You can't chase happiness, but you can find gratitude in the small things. Like, right now, as I'm on the phone with you, I have a pond outside, and geese just flew off it. We have to look at the small moments of gratitude all the time. Resilience might be the word I was looking for. I think we all have to have a certain level of resiliency.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is that a no is just a yes to something else. A closed door is just an open door somewhere else. If it doesn't work, it's not meant to be, and you just move on, and it's okay. It's okay to give yourself grace. Mistakes help you grow and learn, and it's okay to admit to them. Some of my hardest days produce the most fruit - they produce the most clarity.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell them to make sure that they're grounded in who they are and have a level of understanding of their own healing so that they can show up in a strong foundation for others. It's kind of like the picture of the airplane when you're putting on the mask before you're helping other people. Just make sure you refuel, because you'll be burnt out in this industry, for sure. Human services is definitely not for the faint of heart, and people are manipulative, and you can't take any of their personality on. You have to be able to be a person that can remove it. We need more people that cry and show humanness. People come into my office, and I share my story - I did it all backwards, I quit high school, got my GED, ended up getting a master's degree late in life. If I don't share that story and I don't show up in my realness, they're not gonna get help in the way that they really could, because they just see me as a professional who just is talking out of a book. Otherwise, you're gonna go home and not be present in your family.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges in the field is managing compassion fatigue, burnout, and the emotional toll that comes with child protection and human services work, along with the growing need for genuine, honest human connection in high-stress environments. At the same time, there are strong opportunities to expand recovery programs for people with opioid use disorder—such as growing initiatives across multiple counties in Vermont—and to build organizations like Unbound Institute and Daughters of Grace that bridge trauma-informed care, faith, and community-based facilitator training to strengthen long-term support systems.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Truth, integrity, love, and mercy are the most important values to me in my work and personal life. I think the humanness of our existence is really clear in the role that I do. Even when I don't have anything in common with someone that comes into my office, the one thing I can always say is that we both have skin. Even if it's not the same color, we are people, and we both have skin, and we can start there. I think mercy would be the better word - mercy and grace for people today is so imperative.