An inspirational social worker and counsellor who founded one of Bermuda’s leading helping agencies has died aged 66.

Martha Dismont was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2016 for her decades of service to the island.

Ms Dismont built the therapeutic charity Family Centre and tirelessly advocated for Bermuda’s vulnerable — particularly children.

She was a recently widowed mother with a baby daughter when she decided in 1990 to found the charity that grew into Family Centre.

Despite the personal and financial challenges, Ms Dismont described herself as “an eternal optimist” in facing the island’s “dysfunction and unaddressed trauma”.

Ms Dismont stepped down from Family Centre in 2020, but remained close to the charity.

She became managing director at Catalyst Consulting, supporting charities and exploring the roots of Bermuda’s social problems.

She also served as chair of the Inter-Agency Committee for Children and Families, devoted to strengthening the island’s social support network.

The news came as tributes were paid in the House of Assembly to the late Joan Dismont, her mother-in-law, who passed away recently.

Originally from New York, where she was a counsellor, Martha Dismont came to the island when she married Roy Dismont Jr, a Bermudian, in 1986.

She remained in Bermuda as a counsellor and social worker after her husband died in 1989, telling The Royal Gazette in a 2015 interview that she took strength from her faith to raise their daughter, Aruna, on her own.

Ms Dismont recalled working as a substitute counsellor and teacher when she encountered a young boy struggling academically.

She approached the boy’s mother and offered to tutor him.

“I offered it at no cost to her, just to give her some help,” she said. “A month later that mom told another parent, and I had two children after a few months. It spiralled within two years to almost 100 children per week.”

She was inspired to launch her own charity, which began as The Learning Centre but quickly grew to provide clinical services.

Ms Dismont was candid about the difficulty she faced in creating the organisation, recalling: “It was really hard thing to do because I had no real income.

“I had to go out on a leap of faith and say, I believe the community will believe in this work and help us financially.”

It started as a small tutoring service in her home.

As news of its success spread, largely by word of mouth, her after-school programme grew into a summer programme.

Beyond providing academic support, the centre’s stated philosophy was that “all people, regardless of past experience or behaviours, are capable of advancing intellectually and academically through proper support systems, such as confidence-building techniques, constructive activities and tender loving care”.

It moved into providing clinical and therapeutic help to families.

The organisation later pushed to raise best-practice standards, which led to the establishment of the Bermuda National Standards Committee, a charities accreditation organisation.

In 2018, Family Centre took over the former headquarters of children’s home charity the Sunshine League on the outskirts of Hamilton.

She frequently spoke of “unaddressed trauma” as the instigator of much of the island’s social ailments, telling the Gazette on the charity’s 25th anniversary: “If we can just come together and agree upon what we want as a country, we’ll be better on the other end and we will prevent some of the challenges that we might face in ten years or less in terms of the way kids have been raised today.”

She consistently warned of the urgency to address the needs of individuals and families in distress.

“The majority of the families we see, and the majority of families who are still out there but will not come in for services, are traumatised people,” she said of Family Centre, where she served as executive director.

“They will sink this island if the emotional wellbeing of these people is not tended to.

“We need to find ways to bring them in, find ways to make them feel comfortable so they can say they need help.”