Hospital for Special Care
Kevin Bartram | Staff Hospital For Special Care in New Britain.
Posted: Saturday, July 18, 2015 7:24 pm
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Updated: 7:32 pm, Sat Jul 18, 2015.
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Posted on Jul 18, 2015
NEW BRITAIN — Autism services are getting a boost at the Hospital for Special Care, which has hired three new clinicians and promoted a fourth to full-time status.
Dr. Lauren Herlihy, who earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with concentrations in child psychology and neuropsychology from the University of Connecticut and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale’s Child Study Center, will join the autism center’s full-time staff, along with Dr. Erin Sullivan, who received a Ph.D. in educational psychology at UConn and finished a post-doctoral fellowship at the autism center. Sullivan also teaches graduate level autism assessment classes at West Hartford’s University of Saint Joseph and has extensive experience as a school psychologist in Connecticut elementary and high schools.
Meanwhile, Dr. Michele Parker, who earned a Ph.D. in child and family development from the University of Georgia and teaches human development, medical family therapy and related courses at the University of Saint Joseph, has been added to the center’s part-time staff, and Dr. Patricia Aguayo, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the center, will be upgraded to full-time staff in October.
Parker’s arrival will allow the center to expand its individual and group-based family counseling offerings and social skills group training, said Lynn Ricci, the hospital’s vice-president and chief operating officer.
“We’ve done very little of that previously,” she said. “With her time and expertise, we’re able to expand those services.”
Herlihy and Sullivan will perform diagnostic psychological evaluations, clinical and therapeutic services, school-based consultations and social skills training, while Aguayo will now be able to see more patients and spend more time on initial evaluations, therapeutic interventions and medication management, said John Molteni, the center’s director of autism services.
“All of these folks will be working together to enhance the services that we provide,” Ricci said.
The programmatic expansion will not only allow the center to treat more patients but also reduce appointment wait-times, which sometimes can be as long as six months but could eventually be shortened to an average of four to six weeks or less, Ricci said.
“We still have a significant wait list for patients who want to be seen in the autism center for initial evaluation or follow-up evaluations,” Ricci said. “We can now increase the number of individuals that we’re seeing but also reduce the time they have to wait before being seen.”
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Saturday, July 18, 2015 7:24 pm.
Updated: 7:32 pm.
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