SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF TEEN SUICIDE
Clinical and Professional Advisory Board
Member Biographies
Maureen Underwood, LCSW, CGP
Maureen is a licensed clinical social worker and certified group psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience in mental health and crisis intervention. With a practice specialty in suicide, grief, trauma, and crisis resolution for children and families, she has developed numerous programs and published extensively on these and other related topics. From 1985 to 2000, she was the coordinator of the New Jersey Adolescent Suicide Prevention Project. In this role, she initiated collaborative relationships between mental health and educational systems statewide, providing in-service training, consultation on policy development, and assistance in the implementation of procedures for school-based crisis management. She has been providing clinical training in suicide assessment for emergency room mental health screeners for the past seven years and has coauthored a book chapter on the assessment of suicide risk in out-patient settings and the LIFELINES School-Based Youth Suicide Response Program. She is also the author of the National Association of Social Work's policy statement on adolescent suicide and serves on the New Jersey Governor's Council on Youth Suicide Prevention.
Barbara Barisonek
Barbara is the survivor of her son Duke's suicide and is the current president of the New Jersey chapter of the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention. She has been actively involved in suicide prevention advocacy for the past 11 years. She is a presenter in crisis screener suicide training sponsored by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and also trains medical students from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in suicide assessment. Barb was the 2006 recipient of the Golden Bell Leadership Award from the Mental Health Association of New Jersey for her work in suicide prevention.
Barry Feldman, Ph.D.
Barry N. Feldman, Ph.D. is Director of Psychiatry Services in Public Safety and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the UMass Medical School. He provides senior leadership to the UMass Memorial Medical Group and the Medical School to address strategic planning and the management of clinical services provided to individuals working in public safety (i.e., police, corrections, fire, EMS), and emergency medicine personnel. He is a clinician and consultant for On-Site Academy, a non-profit residential treatment and training center serving law enforcement and other public safety personnel. Previously, he served as the Primary Clinician for the Boston Police Stress Support Unit, and worked with the Boston Police Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Team.
Fred T. Fell, LPC
Fred is a licensed professional counselor and a certified high school psychologist in Morris County, New Jersey. His prior professional school psychology experiences involve working in specialized schools for students with significant physical and behavioral difficulties. He has also worked with children and adolescents in both clinical and educational settings where he has provided school-based consultation, counseling, and psychological testing. For many years, Fred has been involved in the development and dissemination of youth suicide prevention programs, and he has collaborated on materials developed by SPTS for school staff and educators.
Janet Grossman, Ph.D.
Dr. Grossman is certified in child psychiatry nursing and holds a doctorate in nursing research, with over 35 years practice experience. She is Associate Professor, Medical University of South Carolina College of Nursing, and Director, Center for Community Health partnerships. She has been involved in Suicidology through youth psychological autopsy studies, programs for children and family survivors, Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities school program in Chicago, and authorship of multiple publications on youth suicide, an exemplary intervention in means restriction and a nationally disseminated CD-ROM. Currently she is the co-investigator of a federally funded program to deliver mental health services to school based clinics and a trainer in the assessment and Management of suicide Risk for mental health professionals.
Nicci Spinazzola, ED.S, LMFT, LPC, BCETS
Nicci is a licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed professional counselor, and board-certified expert in traumatic stress. She maintains a private practice in Morristown, New Jersey, specializing in adolescent and family treatment related to trauma and loss. She is a member of the New Jersey Governor's Council on Youth Suicide Prevention. She is the Somerset County, New Jersey, traumatic loss coordinator in charge of countywide crisis intervention, crisis response, and training in the schools and community. She is currently the clinical director of the Richard Hall CMHC and the former director of the ALLIES Adolescent and Family Service Department at the Richard Hall CMHC, specializing in intensive out-patient treatment services for adolescents and their families. She has designed and implemented programs to meet the needs of families, schools, and community organizations, speaking extensively on the topics of suicide, managing sudden and traumatic loss in the schools, resiliency, and other related topics. She provides training for local universities, school systems and social service and public safety agencies. She has overseen and delivered statewide training for the certification and re-certification of psychiatric screeners.
Judith is a licensed psychologist who maintains a private practice in Morristown, New Jersey. She also serves as the Program Director of the Ceceilyn Miller Institute for Leadership and Diversity, a non-profit human relations consulting, training, and evaluation organization. Formerly a school psychologist and visiting faculty member at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Professional and Applied Psychology, Judith has had extensive experience with the design and implementation of a variety of resiliency-based programs for students. Her professional publications focus on school-based counseling, peer resources, student-parent-teacher communication and most recently, together with Maureen Underwood, Michelle Scott, and Scott Fritz, she co-authored Lifelines Intervention: Helping Students at Risk for Suicide. She has been a consultant of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide Speakers Bureau since 2006.
JColleen Carpenter led two statewide initiatives on suicide prevention over the last 8 years (Indiana Cares Youth Suicide Prevention Project and the Indiana Suicide Prevention Coalition). During this time she built a statewide resource center that provides resources, education, and training to individuals, organizations and communities across the state. She is a trainer in 5 evidence-based suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention training programs. Her specialty is providing targeted consultation to build the long term capacity of organizations (e.g., schools)and communities that are working to prevent suicide. She has a master's degree in sociology from Loyola University Chicago and a master's degree in public health from the University of North Carolina's Health Behavior and Health Education program. She is also a survivor of her Uncle John's suicide.
Misty Vaughan Allen, MA became the Suicide Prevention Coordinator of Nevada in December 2005. She works together with local advisory groups and community coalitions, providing oversight and leadership to launch this newly established program. As the Suicide Prevention Coordinator, she facilitated the development of Nevada’s first Suicide Prevention plan consistent with the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. Ms. Allen graduated with her Master’s Degree in counseling from the University of Nevada, Reno. She began her journey to prevent suicide as the coordinator for the Suicide Prevention Hotline of Nevada, a program of the Crisis Call Center in Reno. Ms. Allen advocates for suicide prevention resources to help create change for Nevadans. She is the proud mother of Luke and Madelynne who assist her with suicide prevention events across the state.