WASHINGTON, D.C.—Michele Navarro Ishiki, MSW, LCSW, has been named the 2025 Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for her efforts to provide safe spaces for her community to heal.
This award honors an outstanding member of the community whose accomplishments exemplify the mission, dedication and values of professional social work.
Ishiki, a licensed clinical social worker, is being recognized for improving the mental health of vulnerable populations, including survivors and first responders in the aftermath of the deadly Maui wildfires in August 2023.
A member of the NASW-HI Board of Directors, Ishiki is a certified clinical supervisor, a state-certified substance abuse counselor, and an internationally certified alcohol and drug counselor. Her BSW and MSW are from the Thompson School of Social Work and Public Health at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is also a native Hawaiian practitioner who aligns her Western-trained skill set to meet the needs of her lāhui, which means community in Hawaiian.
Ishiki founded Piha Wellness and Healing, a non-profit organization that provides emotional support and mental health services while incorporating a holistic approach to well-being. She is president and a founding member of Pouhana O Nā Wāhine, the first of its kind federally funded Native Hawaiian Resources Center, which was created to help families address domestic violence. In her private practice, MNI Counseling Services, LLC, she is a therapist diagnosing and treating mental health and substance abuse disorders.
Ishiki is a clinical therapist for the Kanehoalani Boys Safe House on Maui, a Family Intervention Program of the Salvation Army that provides residential, prevention, and intervention services to adolescents. One of her contractors, the Friends of the Children’s Justice Center of Maui, provides therapeutic care for children who have been neglected, abused, or affected by other traumas. Ishiki was able to reduce the wait time—from an average of three months to less than a week—for children who require immediate services from a state-provided mental health provider.
She has been a clinical director for several centers including the Mental Health Services at Hauʻoli Piha, Ohana Addiction Treatment Center and Aloha House Substance Abuse Division. Earlier in her career, she worked at the Aloha House as a mental health worker and counselor in the Co-Occurring Disorders Treatment Program and as a program director at the Aloha House Substance Abuse Division Residential Treatment. Ishiki, an advocate for domestic violence surivors and unhoused populations, worked as a homeless program specialist at the Department of Housing and Human Concerns. During the pandemic, she did a stint at Care Hawaii, implementing the COVID-19 Crisis Call Center in Maui County.
NASW is proud to recognize Ishiki as the recipient of the NASW National Public Citizen of the Year Award. Her work represents many of the values of the social work profession, which include advocating for those who are most vulnerable and persecuted in our society and helping to meet the basic needs of all people.