Core Faculty

Mari Aceves, EdD, DSW, BCBA is an integrated health consultant for the National Council of Mental Wellbeing. She has worked in the mental health field for over 20 years working with children, adolescents, and adults. Dr. Aceves earned a doctorate in Educational Leadership with a P-12 emphasis (CSUF) and a doctorate in Social Work (USC). Dr. Aceves has worked with individuals who have mental health conditions, genetic disorders, and trauma. Dr. Aceves is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with over a decade of experience in working with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. Her previous work experience includes working with children with behavioral deficits in orphanages, substance abuse, outreaches to housing insecure and geriatric populations. Her expertise includes early intervention, parent education, family systems and interdisciplinary collaboration with educational and health care systems. Dr. Aceves’ focus is to help clients reach independence and social integration; and to teach their support systems to interact more effectively through sustainable practices.

R. Timothy Kearney, PhD earned his BA with a combined major in Psychology and Spanish Literature at Yale University and pursued graduate work at Fuller Theological Seminary where he earned his MA (Theology) from the Graduate School of Theology and his PhD (Clinical Psychology) from the Graduate School of Psychology. He has also completed the post graduate Primary Care Behavioral Health training program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. He is a licensed psychologist in Connecticut. He joined the Community Health Center behavioral health staff in 1998. He is the author of Caring for Sexually Abused Children: A Handbook for Families and Churches (Intervarsity Press, 2001). In addition to administrative and clinical leadership of the Behavioral Health programs at CHC, Dr. Kearney supervises and trains postdoctoral psychology residents, co-leads psychotherapy groups with students and younger staff to train them in the provision of child group therapy, and provides direct client care with the clinical focus of providing care to children and adolescents and their families, especially those impacted by medical illness, trauma, and abuse.

Georgette Harrison, EdM, LPC earned her Master of Arts and Master of Education degrees in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University, and holds an Infant-Parent Mental Health Post-Graduate Certificate from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Connecticut, a rostered trauma-informed Child-Parent Psychotherapy clinician, a trainer for Attachment-Regulation-Competency treatment model, as well as a Circle of Security Parenting Facilitator. Before coming to CGC, Ms. Harrison served as Training Director for the Child First National Program Office, helping develop, coordinate and deliver in-person and distance learning trainings for Child First staff in Connecticut, Florida and North Carolina. Her clinical experience includes serving as the Director of Clinical Services for Integrated Wellness Group, and bilingual clinician at the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center Child and Family Guidance Clinic. Her research experience includes serving as the Database Manager and Neuropsychological Testing Coordinator at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Naomi Schapiro, RN, PhD, CPNP-PC is a pediatric nurse practitioner and a Professor Emeritx of Family Health Care Nursing at the University of California San Francisco. She has over thirty years’ experience working with children and adolescents, including immigrant families, incarcerated youth and survivors of child sexual abuse, and currently volunteers in a pediatric clinic for asylum applicants. She has provided health care to low-income adolescents in full scope pediatric and adolescent primary care clinics and school-based health centers for over 25 years. Dr. Schapiro has championed the practice of integrated, trauma-informed primary care and behavioral health and the teaching of enhanced behavioral health skills to pediatric primary care providers in school-based health centers and other primary care clinics serving low-income youth, immigrants and young people of color. Her research has focused on trauma and trauma and resilience for Latinx unaccompanied and other newcomer immigrant youth, including family reunification, adaptation strategies, and appropriate screening and interventions for trauma symptoms. Dr. Schapiro has conducted national and regional academic, conference and community workshops in English and Spanish on adolescent confidentiality and access to care, child maltreatment awareness and reporting, impact of ACES on lifelong development, trauma-informed care and immigrant health.

Jessica Welt, PsyD is the CEO & Clinical Director of the Child Guidance Center of Southern Connecticut (CGC) and joined Community Health Center Inc.’s leadership team when CHC became an affiliate in January 2020. She continues to provide administrative and clinical leadership to CGC’s programs that provide mental and behavioral health services to children, adolescents, and families in Lower Fairfield County. Dr. Welt is also a clinical supervisor in the APA Accredited Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship Program, specializing in training interns and staff in risk assessment and crisis management, grief, trauma-informed care, and group psychotherapy.

Guest Faculty

Terence Fitzgerald, PhD, MEd, MSW as of September 2022, is an internal consultant with the National Council of Mental Wellbeing. He was previously a clinical associate professor of social work at the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California.

Fitzgerald grew up in Champaign, Illinois, where he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts, a master's degree in both school social work and educational leadership, and a doctorate in education policy studies. He is a racial scholar who focuses on racial and economic inequity in public and higher education that targets males of color and low socioeconomic white males.

For 15 years, Fitzgerald first worked at the elementary, middle, and high school levels as a school social worker in racially and economically diverse settings in Illinois. He has also worked with social justice grassroots organizations that focus on marginalized children and families. In addition, he has professional experience with aligning curricula to meet state and federal requirements, program and curriculum evaluation, improving racial climate and curriculum, policies, and program evaluations.   

Examples of his research on racism and gender can be seen in his soon-to-be-released book: Whitered Kings: Hip Hop, Escapism, Racial Oppression, and Drugs, Black Males and Racism: Improving the Schooling and Life Chances of African Americans, and White Prescriptions: The Dangerous Social Potential for Ritalin and other Psychotropic Drugs to Harm Black Males. His expertise can also be found in numerous articles nationally and internationally.

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Faculty participating in a Weitzman Institute-sponsored activity must disclose to the planning committee and audience all financial or other relationship(s) with ineligible companies.