MASC/MASS 2016: Speakers - Shella Dennery

Shella Dennery, PhD, LICSW, is the Program Director of the Boston Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships Program (CHNP), the community behavioral health program in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Dennery directs a comprehensive behavioral health program that provides services to Boston area schools and community health centers. The program provides prevention focused activities, early intervention services, and clinical assessment and treatment services to students in their educational home. In addition, Dr. Dennery oversees the Training and Access Project (TAP). TAP provides high quality professional development and consultation to educators, administrators, and school staff. The goal of the project is to help build schools capacity to better address the social, emotional, and behavioral health needs of their students, staff and community.

She has spent the majority of her career working as a school social worker in the Boston Public Schools and teaching and consulting on behavioral health related topics in community settings. Dr. Dennery has extensive experience uniting parents, schools, and neighborhood organizations to help strengthen the social and emotional health of children and adolescents. She holds a PhD from Smith College and an MSW from Simmons College. She also holds two post-master’s certificates in child and adolescent therapy and advanced clinical supervision from Smith College. Dr. Dennery is adjunct faculty in social work at both Simmons College and Smith College, and is an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.