Faculty

Core Faculty

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.

Pamela Black, MA, has over thirty years of experience in Wisconsin as a teacher, diagnostician, consultant and district level administrator. She was a leader in the development of Kenosha Unified School District’s universal level trauma sensitive school’s professional development. Pam is co-author of Wisconsin Trauma Sensitive Schools Learning Modules and companion coaching curriculum as well as the Trauma-Awareness presentation created to meet the requirement of the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s $100,000,000 grant for schools. She co-authored a chapter for the 2nd edition of Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students on Program Implementation and Evaluation. As a consultant for the National Council on Behavioral Health’s Trauma Sensitive Schools’ initiative, Pamela works with school and district teams across the country to align their programs and practices with Trauma-Informed Resilience-Oriented values. Currently she is involved in several National Council efforts with the University of Michigan National Center for School Safety.  Pamela is honored to be a part of the collaboration on the Weitzman Trauma ECHO.

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 Professor Emer. of Family Health Care Nursing at the University of California San Francisco, and a pediatric nurse practitioner at La Clínica de la Raza School-based Health Centers (SBHC). She has over thirty years’ experience working with children and adolescents, including immigrant families, incarcerated youth and survivors of child sexual abuse.  She has provided health care to low-income adolescents in full scope pediatric and adolescent primary care clinics and SBHCs for over 20 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 involved strategies for family reunification, and general adaptation of newcomer immigrant Latinx youth, the impact of academic-community partnerships on school-based health care, and the appropriateness of rapid trauma symptom screens in young adolescents. 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, Dr. Welt 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

Weitzman Institute Disclosure Statement

It is the policy of the Weitzman Institute to ensure that Continuing Education (CE) activities are independent and free of commercial bias. To ensure educational content is objective, balanced, and guarantee content presented is in the best interest of its learners' and the public, the Weitzman Institute requires that everyone in a position to control educational content disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. An ineligible company is one whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Examples can be found at accme.org.

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.

Faculty Disclosures

No faculty disclosed a relevant financial relationship for this program.