Bobbie Sandoz Merrill, MSW

Bobbie Sandoz Merrill, MSW, is a community leader with a diverse career that includes an active counseling and consulting practice. She is a nationally known parenting and school consultant and an internationally recognized author, award-winning newspaper columnist, school co-founder, and professional speaker.

Her newest book, Settle For More: You Can Have The Relationship You Always Wanted...Guaranteed! is co-authored with her professional and life partner, Dr. Tom Merrill, a prominent psychologist and community leader. The unexpected discovery that led to their own relationship’s unique success is shared in this book.

Bobbie’s other books include the bestselling, More Parachutes For Parents, Raising Loved and Loving Children for a Joyful World; The Rip Cord, A Problem-Solving Guide and Companion to More Parachutes for Parents; and In the Presence of High Beings, What Dolphins Want You to Know—previously titled Listening to Wild Dolphins—which was published in 5 languages and chronicles her decade of swimming in the wild with dolphins and whales throughout the world. She received positive reviews for all four books from major publications, including The Library Journal, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, Dallas Morning News, McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal, Bottom Line Personal, Rutgers University, Bookwatch, Western Book and Children’s Book Review.

Bobbie is a co-founder of a School in Hawaii known for keeping the joy of learning and the spirit of children vibrantly alive while teaching them appropriately kind social behavior and high-level living and thinking skills. She is also the founder and president of New Visions in Education established to develop a demonstration school for large-scale training in this unique approach to education. She was an award-winning columnist for seven years with The Honolulu-Advertiser, and currently she and her husband are free-lance columnists for several newspapers and magazines. In addition, Bobbie is a founding board member of HUGS of Hawaii, and a past vice-chair of the Child Development Center of Hawaii. She received the Hawaii Headliner Award from Women in Communication and was featured in Honolulu Magazine as one of five of “Hawaii’s Successful Women.”

Bobbie has a master’s degree in clinical social work with a specialization in child development, has received advanced graduate training in education, advanced training in specialized trauma treatment techniques for children and adults, and is trained in a unique conflict-resolution technique. She earned a BA in English and Psychology in the United States and a Certificate of Foreign Study from the Institute for American Universities affiliated with the University of Aix-Marseilles, France.

A mother and grandmother, Bobbie currently lives with her husband Tom in Arizona and Hawaii and consults in person and by phone in multiple states with individuals, couples and families as well as with schools, corporations, treatment centers and churches. For more information or a private consultation, contact Bobbie at 808-542-3983 or bsandoz@aol.com.