Faculty
Infant-Parent Training Institute:
Faculty
Judith Arons, LICSW
Judith Arons is a Clinical Social Worker on the faculty of Simmons School of Social Work and Cambridge Health Alliance and maintains a private practice in Brookline. She was formerly Curriculum Coordinator and Co-Director of the Infant Mental Health Program at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy with Drs. Birss and Epstein. Ms. Arons has extensive experience working with children, adults and couples and a longstanding interest in women’s reproductive and infant perinatal health. She successfully completed the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute’s Advanced Training Program in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Ms. Arons has been involved in teaching and supervising mental health professionals for twenty years.
Sarah Birss, MD
Dr. Birss is a child and adult psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, with training in developmental pediatrics. She was Co-Director, with Dr. Epstein, of the Infant Mental Health Training Program at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy for four years, and has been a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School for almost twenty years. She is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Birss has an interest in early emotional developmental theories, including attachment and psychoanalytic theories, and in applying this interest to clinical work with young children and parents. She has consulted to Early Intervention and to therapeutic preschools. Dr. Birss has a private practice in child and adult psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Cambridge.
Ann Epstein, MD
Ann Epstein. MD: Dr. Epstein has an interest in applying psychodynamic principles to clinical work with parents and young children. She has done research in attachment over the life cycle. She has consulted to Early Intervention programs, preschools, and a Pediatric Failure to Thrive clinic. She is a psychoanalyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. With Dr. Birss and Ms. Arons, she ran the Infant Mental Health fellowship at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy for five years. She practices adult and child psychiatry in Cambridge. She has been involved with teaching and supervising residents and fellows at Harvard Medical School for over fifteen years. Dr. Epstein is a clinical instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Peggy H. Kaufman, M.Ed., LICSW
Peggy Kaufman is the Director of The Center for Early Relationship Support at Jewish Family & Children’s Service. With a background in perinatal emotional health and the growth and development of parents her interests include the earliest relationships. Ms. Kaufman has extensive experience in training and has taught at Bank Street College, Lesley University and Wheelock College where she was adjunct faculty for over 25 years. Clinical practice, consultation and supervision continue to be a major part of her work and interest.
Judith Semonoff, LICSW
Judith Semonoff is a clinical social worker with 20 years of experience in Early Intervention. Ms. Semonoff has served as a clinician and clinical supervisor and has a particular interest in supporting families who have a child with developmental delays or disabilities. Her clinical interests also include providing home-based parent-infant psychotherapy as well as integrating reflective supervision practices for staff from all disciplines that work with vulnerable families. Ms. Semonoff served as the training coordinator for the RI Early Intervention Training Center where she developed the training curriculum for multi-disciplinary staff and clinical supervisors in all of the RI Early Intervention programs. She has consulted to Early Intervention programs in RI and MA. Ms. Semonoff is a graduate of the Infant Mental Health Clinical Fellowship at the Infant Parent Training Institute, a program of Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Boston.
Susan Sklan, M.Ed., LICSW
Susan Sklan is a clinical social worker with a background in child development from her years of experience in early intervention and overseeing a program for adolescent parents. She is a graduate of the Infant Mental Health Fellowship program at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy. Her practice and interests include therapeutic supports for the parent-infant and parent-child relationship, home visit based psychotherapy and the provision of clinical services to under served populations. She is currently the Clinical Director of The Parents Program of the Newton Community Service Center, a staff clinician at the Rice Center for Children and Families clinic at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and she has a private practice.
Eda Spielman, PsyD
Dr. Spielman is the Director of Early Connections at Jewish Family & Children’s Service. She taught a clinical integrative seminar at MSPP for many years and has served as a consultant to Early Intervention, Early Head Start and Healthy Families. She holds a certificate in Infant Mental Health from the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and is in private practice in Newton with a specialty in issues of pregnancy and parenting. Her most recent publication is with Dr. Karlen Lyons-Ruth on integrating attachment research with clinical intervention. Current professional interests include adoptive parenting, development of reflective function and the application of infant mental health principles beyond clinical settings.
Claudia Yellin, Ph.D.
Claudia Yellin is a clinical psychologist with a specialty in infant mental health and parent-infant psychotherapy. She received her Ph.D. from Boston University and completed her Clinical Psychology Internship at the Infant Mental Health Institute at Tulane University Medical School. There, she performed assessment and psychotherapy with young foster children and their foster and biological families. Her post-doctoral internship was at the Early Childhood Research Center at Brown University, where she researched family functioning, consulted to Head Start, and worked with young children and families. Dr. Yellin has a private practice in Providence, RI, and is an adjunct psychologist at Women and Infants Hospital. She is a mental health consultant to Early Intervention and to Parents as Teachers. She has published in the areas of unresolved attachment and trauma.
