Staff
Ann Irr Dagle, President and Executive Director
Ann Irr Dagle is the co-founder and President of the Brian Dagle Foundation and Brian’s Healing Hearts Center for Hope and Healing in Niantic, Connecticut. She is a member of the Connecticut Chapter of The American Foundation of Suicide Prevention and a Tri-Chair of the CT Suicide Advisory Board as well as a certification in Grief Studies from the Center for Loss in Colorado.
Through trainings on grief, loss, and suicide prevention, Ann has learned to weave her loss into her life and giving herself to feel whatever she needs to feel; to embrace the pain of sorrow but also to find joy and happiness.
Paul T. Dagle, Vice President
Paul is retired from Electric Boat Corporation in Groton after 40 years of service. His community service activities have included youth baseball, football, and basketball; East Lyme Planning Commission and Board of Assessment Appeals (2 years Chairman) and was a member of the East Lyme Board of Selectman, East Lyme HS Football Coach and is the current Board Chair of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Connecticut Chapter.
Chelsea Bourn, Program Coordinator
Chelsea Bourn joined The Brian Dagle Foundation as Program Coordinator in December 2023. Working solely in non-profit human service organizations since she left graduate school in 2013, Chelsea is passionate about developing wellness focused programming, cultivating community relationships, and connecting healing people with their “tribes”.
Chelsea lives in Wethersfield with her first-responder husband Erich and their rescue pup Harper. When she’s not at Brian’s Healing Hearts, she is an Adjunct Instructor in the Psychology Department at CT State – Tunxis and manages Factum Equine, a non-profit that provides nature based wellness programming with horses in East Haddam. A lifelong horsewoman, Chelsea is also a mindfulness devotee and interested in all things crunchy granola.
Becky L McCoy, Communications & Outreach Coordinator
Becky L McCoy is a writer and speaker who lives on the Connecticut coast with her two precocious and hilarious children. Having struggled with depression and anxiety and experienced several seasons of grief and trauma – including being widowed at 28 – Becky is passionate about finding ways of living that embrace trauma, grief, mental health, and neurodivergence. Having recently completed a seminary program in Spiritual Formation, Becky is currently working on a project to that explores spiritual practices for grief, burnout, and mental illness.
Becky can be found at BeckyLMcCoy.com, on social media, or at her podcast Sucker Punched.
Jaileen Barber, Administrative Assistant
Jaileen started at the Brian Dagle Foundation as an intern for a high school course in high school and began working for the foundation part time in February of 2022. She is very active with the Lax2Live Program and many of the foundation’s events. Jaileen currently attends Mitchell College as a Psychology Major with a minor in Criminal Justice where she is a board member for the Behavioral Science Club. She is passionate about mental health and hopes to become a licensed therapist for adolescents in the future. She loves to be cuddled up with her dog every night and explore with her family.
Patty Giannattasio, Therapist
Patty earned her Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Southern CT State University in 2019. She interned with Brian’s Healing Hearts where she facilitated grief support groups and provided individual grief counseling and therapy. Patty believes there is hope and meaning to be found in the grieving process and considers it an honor to companion others on their grief journeys. Before earning her Master’s degree, Patty spent over 25 years as a Head Women’s Volleyball Coach at the high school and collegiate levels. In addition, Patty is Grants Manager for the Doolittle Family Foundation. She has two adult daughters and two grandchildren. Patty was predeceased by her husband in 2012 and lives in Niantic, CT.