Leadership

Dr. DePinto is the District Coordinator of School-Based Mental Health Services for the Ridgewood Public Schools in Ridgewood, NJ. She was honored to be selected as a member of the review committee and contributing author of Chapter 6: Frameworks for Risk Response and Assessment in the recently published New Jersey Comprehensive School-Based Mental Health Guide. Dr. DePinto earned her Doctorate in Clinical Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania School for Social Policy and Practice, a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University, and Bachelor of Science in Social Work and Sociology from Seton Hall University. Additionally, she received a PostMaster's Certificate in Clinical Practice with Adolescents from New York University Silver School of Social Work and has specialized clinical training, including but not exclusive to, Trauma-Informed Care and The Sanctuary Model, Post-Traumatic Stress Management and Psychological First Aid (PFA), as well as Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) and Crisis Intervention and Mental Health First Aide.

Prior to her tenure in public education, Dr. DePinto started her social work career in community-based mental health and psychiatric emergency screening. She joined the Ridgewood Public Schools in 2005 as a School Social Worker on the Child Study Team before moving into her clinical school social work role as Crisis Intervention Counselor and most recently, as the first appointed K-12 District Coordinator of School-Based Mental Health Services for the Ridgewood Public Schools in 2019. She is a longstanding member of the NASW and an approved NJ Clinical Social Work Supervisor as well as a member of the School Social Worker Association of America (SSWAA) and the New Jersey Educational Association (NJEA). She holds a NJDOE School Social Work Certificate and is a NJ Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). Dr. DePinto also maintains a private psychotherapy practice in northern Bergen County that has been established since 2013.

With nearly 25 years of clinical social work experience, she specializes in supporting the social, emotional, psychological, and educational needs of children, adolescents, and families through integrated evidenced based mental health services in education and school-based mental health scholarship. Her research interests include advances in school-based mental health practices and programming, relationship-based discipline models, the role of neuroscience in understanding human relationships and its impact on development and learning, secure base functioning in the classroom, and examining the practical application of attachment theory as a framework for understanding and interpreting student and staff behavior in addressing barriers to learning, as well as therapist attachment narratives and its impact on therapeutic outcomes. Dr. DePinto is dedicated to clinical social work education and has developed and facilitated numerous professional development training courses for RPS school administration and staff and had the honor of authoring and co-facilitating a nationally recognized presentation entitled, "Creating a House that Smiles: Optimizing School Culture and Climate Through Relationship-Based Practices" alongside Basil Pizzuto at the 2019 Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health in Austin, Tx. and again, at the Virtual 25th Annual School Mental Health Conference in October 2020 in addition to a presentation supporting her own doctoral research entitled, "The Attuned School Clinician: Attachment-Based Clinical Practice in Schools."