Training Program:
​
Dr. Perna has been training post-doctoral fellows, psychology interns, social work interns, licensed mental health counselors, and psychiatric residents for years. He began supervising trainees at McLean Hospital, which is Harvard Medical School's largest psychiatric teaching site-located in Belmont, MA. 
 
​At CCS, he has partnered with co-supervisors  Suzanne Brooks, PsyD, NCSP, Molly Curcio, PsyD,  and Sherry Paden in developing a multifaceted training program that covers a wide range of clinical interventions. Please take a look at their training profiles as supervisors as well as their approach to training at CCS which is listed below. 

Applications should be submitted to:
          David A. Perna, PhD
          Director of Training
          [email protected]

Post-Doctoral Training Fellowship Details (Click)
Post-doctoral Training Deadline: March 15, 2025
​Post-Doctoral Training Stipend: $70,000.00

"Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda.  At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose."     
                             -Martin Luther King, Jr (1947)
                                                 The Purpose of Education
                                                                      The Maroon Tiger
                                                                      Morehouse College Newspaper

David A. Perna, PhD
Licensed Psychologist, Director of Training
Lecturer in Psychology, Harvard Medical School

Approach: 

My guiding philosophy as a supervisor is based on the belief  that training should be  fun and engaging  while at the same time  rigorous and thorough. I  constantly remind trainees  of the strengths/gifts that they bring to their clinical work while keeping in mind how they can layer on more advanced skills as the year progresses. I emphasize the growth of fundamental critical thinking skills that they will require as they progress in their career. As a result, I emphasize process over content-focused interventions that help them engage with patients in a manner whereby substantive change can take root. 

 CLINICAL FOCUS:

• College Transition
• Anger Management/Legal Issues 
• Learning Challenges
• Ecosystemic Treatment
• Motivational Interviewing
• Metacognition Skill Acquisition
• The Process of Change
• Developmental Theory
• Multi-Modality Treatment (MMT)
• Counter-Transference Issues
• Parrallel Processing Techniques

DBT TREATMENT PROGRAM:

The DBT treatment program was designed to merge the strengths of an evidence-based treatment program (Rathus & Miller, 2015) with our Holistic Learning approach to treatment at CCS. 

​Trainees have the opportunity to work with Dr. Perna and Dr. Paden, who are both DBT-F certified psychologists running an outpatient treatment group for adolescents with serious/complex mental health and learning challenges. 

Trainees participate in our biweekly DBT training rounds that includes a complete review of the curriculum and the manner by which it is implemented within  group, family, and individual therapy modalities.  ​

MULTI-MODALITY THERAPY (MMT): ​

The core of  supervision focuses on teaching how to integrate individual, family, and group treatment with academic interventions and past/present testing data. This Multi-Modality approach to treatment facilitates clinical progress in patients who are frequently deemed to be "Treatment Failures" by prior providers. Trainees are able to understand how powerful copatient feedback can facilitate change and how the threading of clinical information into and out of the various sessions promotes clinical change across all domains of intervention.
Please refer to the wide array of groups offered  at CCS (click).  ​

GROUP CO-THERAPY

I fully enjoy participating in group co-therapy experiences with trainees. See the CCS group page for more details. Trainees have the opportunity to work with me in different groups that have a range of developmental ages as well as an array of diagnostic presentations  that facilitate the trainees breadth and depth of experience.  

After each group all cotherapists discuss the group dynamics, their countertransference experiences, and the various options for their engagement with patients moving forward.  Clinical threads from family/individual/school interventions are woven into the group process. Group dynamics are also  discussed in relation to family system issues and co-therapy interactions.

​Co-therapy/observation of intakes, school meetings, and family therapy sessions are also utilized throughout the training year to enhance MMT skill development.  ​

TESTING/EVALUATIONS:

I work closely with trainees to help them hone their writing techniques, allowing them to weave a patient's personal narrative into a given document. The goal is to allow the patient to be understood as a "Holistic" individual by their school team, psychiatrist, probation officer, BSEA hearing officer, DMH worker, or lawyer. Holism promotes the development of an effective narrative, and in turn,  better clinical, educational, and legal outcomes. Professionals are impacted by a well written narrative rather than a loosely connected collection of facts.  We teach how to move information to the level of knowledge and knowledge to the level of wisdom in our report writing process. 

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS:

I have had the opportunity to work in a wide array of clinical settings, including a medium security prison,  the California juvenile justice system, various school systems, a major teaching hospital, and a community-based hospital. I have also served as the Director of a Child/Adolescent Anger Management Program at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School running an outpatient anger department in addition to developing a specialized anger management classroom in the hospital's Acute Residential Treatment Program. I founded Copernican Clinical Services and  daVinci Behavioral Health, Inc.,  in addition to founding  CCS's Training Program. 

​"We felt that we used to talk too much about ourselves and our past
clinical experiences in our interviews with applicants-so
we created this training page to share more about ourselves-
now we spend more time focusing on each candidate during our interviews-
​learning about their past training experiences and
expectations for training allows us to find great matches and helps us launch
​so many young professionals into the next stage of their careers."

Candidate Expectations:

​Competitive trainees typically have prior experience in school settings, inpatient psychiatry placements, residential programs, court clinics, and/or college counseling centers. Experience in writing comprehensive testing reports/clinical summaries is essential and writing samples are reviewed and discussed within the interview process.  Critical thinking skills are evaluated throughout the interview process based  on a clinical case presentation. We encourage trainees to present their case using a powerpoint presentation, however,  a handout is acceptable. We look for clarity of thought and a firm grasp of all clinical facts in presentations as well as the integration of evidence-based interventions. Warmth, rapport, and interpersonal sensitivity are all critical components to a successful candidate interview.

---

Molly Curcio, PsyD
Licensed Psychologist
Assistant Director of Training
​

Approach: 

My approach to testing/assessment supervision is based upon a collaborative growth-mindset perspective. Similar to my clinical style, fostering a positive, respectful, and trusting working relationship between myself and my supervisees is critical to their professional development, response to feedback, and my overall effectiveness as a supervisor. I aim to be flexible and adaptable in meeting each supervisee's individual needs and facilitate their growth and competency development over the course of the training year.

Clinical Writing:

As a testing supervisor,  I find that working with supervisees on their report writing skills is one of my primary responsibilities. My approach to teaching and supervising report writing begins with a review of the foundations of report writing, exploring my supervisees' experience with assessment and report writing, and explaining Copernican’s unique report writing process.

​Throughout the writing process, I make a concerted effort to clearly communicate expectations for timelines, styles, the content of reports, and the type of interaction and collaboration between myself and my supervisees. To determine the amount/type of support and direction a supervisee needs, I consider their interpersonal style, developmental level of knowledge, and skills in test administration, interpretation, and report writing. I also keep in mind the nature and complexity of the testing case. Overall, my goal is to assist supervisees in identifying and further developing their strengths and areas of growth with assessment and report writing.

TESTING EXPERIENCE:

I discovered my interest in assessment and testing through my graduate school courses in cognitive and advanced integrative assessment. I had a strong desire to continue strengthening my knowledge and skills in testing by developing my own Advanced Practicum site with a neuropsychologist while attending graduate school at William James College. They specialized in the evaluation and management of children, adolescents, and emerging adults with language-based learning challenges, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders, executive function weaknesses, social pragmatic issues, anxiety, and depression. This training experience provided me with a solid foundation in testing/assessment that I brought with me to my internship experience.

I continued to grow these skills during my pre-Doctoral training placement at the Children’s Intervention Program (ChIP) at Riverbend Community Mental Health. At ChIP, I completed comprehensive psychological evaluations with children and adolescents who presented with complex mental health challenges. During my Post-Doctoral training at Copernican, I conducted integrative psychological and neuropsychological assessments with children, adolescents, and adults.

Child/Adolescent  Work

I have worked with children and adolescents as a clinician for a number of years and appreciate the extent to which a strong foundation in development and learning has served me well when I am sitting with little "ones"  in my office. 

I like to work with challenging patients and have trained as a trauma-focused clinician. I have found that the process of learning is critical in understanding language development which has been generally stunted in patients who have been traumatized. Facilitating the development of communication between family dyads that have been  impacted by traumatic events has been clinically satisfying for me as a clinician. I have found my interest in working with kids with ASD diagnoses to be equally challenging in the extent to which all of my clinical skills are constantly required to facilitate long-term, sustainable change. However, the end result is always quite satisfying.

​I try to bring my full range of clinical  experience to my work as a supervisor at CCS. I  feel that my trainees appreciate my dual commitment to testing and treatment allows us to forge ahead when we work with patients who had previously been considered to be "treatment resistant" or "untreatable." That end result is really  quite satisfying. 

Suzanne, Brooks, PsyD, NCSP
Licensed Psychologist
Senior ​Testing Supervisor
School Psychologist

Approach: 

I love to test and try to bring my passion to all of my clinical and supervisory interactions at CCS. My guiding philosophy as a supervisor is to provide a supportive environment for learning  that is warm, frequently filled with humor, and clinically sophisticated. 

Focus:

We work as a team in our weekly rounds to build  a consensus on what tests we will  use to answer the referral questions in the most accurate manner via a comprehensive battery. After completing the  initial round of  tests we commonly add in supplemental tests that allow us to hone in on learning issues that may not have been readily apparent at the beginning of the evaluation. 

We not only seek out the feedback of collaterals as part of our testing process, but use feedback from parents and teachers to ascertain the degree to which the patient's responses are accurate, in essence a measure of metacognition that is frequently overlooked by other evaluators. We then followup with collaterals and ask questions that allow us to hone in on information that allow our reports to be accurate and well integrated into academic, outpatient treatment,  and home-based environments. It is a lot of work, but the end result is generally quite impressive and qualitatively superior to the types of psychological evaluations that came across my desk as as school psychologist in Weston. 

Testing Experience:

I have completed hundreds of batteries in my role as a school psychologist with the Weston Public School Department over the last 15 years. I have also completed many other batteries in my private practice, working with a range of families and schools in the Boston metro area. 

I came to CCS because I felt that CCS's holistic approach to treatment included a firm understanding of how test results needed to be integrated into outpatient treatment. Rather than simply letting test reports gather dust on a shelf, CCS's staff fully integrate test findings into all aspects of treatment in a robust way that I have never before experienced  in a treatment setting. We refer to this fervent focus on learning and  testing integration as "Testing Activism." 

Approach to TESTING:

​I understand that not all trainees have the same level of testing experience and work with each trainee to fill in the holes in their testing background so they can feel more confident by the time they complete their third battery.

I take a process-based approach to testing, focusing on the details of each patient's presentation in order to craft a narrative about them that is accurate and understood by all of the parties who attend the testing feedback sessions. 
​
At CCS we feel strongly about the concept of metacognition and feel that it is our duty to help patients, their parents, and their teams come away from a testing feedback session with a firm understanding of the patient's learning profile that is three-dimensional in nature. 

Sherry Paden, PsyD
Licensed Psychologist
DBT Training Supervisor
Clinical Instructor, Harvard Medical
​

Approach: 

In order to assist trainees in their personal and professional growth, I take a culturally responsive, holistic, collaborative and relational approach to supervision.
 
I reference attachment theory as a framework for clinical supervision and believe that the supervisory alliance is the primary vehicle for how learning takes place in supervision. Security from the supervisory relationship allows trainees to take risks in treatment, learn from mistakes, develop their own therapeutic voice, and integrate a clear professional identity as a therapist. 
 
While my approach to supervision is integrative, it is also informed by DBT. I practice supervision with radical authenticity and irreverence, such as humor and playfulness, and encourage bilateral feedback. I aim to strike the right balance between empowering the autonomy of trainees and challenging their critical thinking skills. 
 
Upon completion of training, my hope is that trainees will feel more confident in their ability to sort out differential diagnoses and develop effective case conceptualizations and treatment plans that will meet the unique needs of their clients.

Clinical Writing:

Documentation is the single thread that binds treatment together and ensures continuity of care for our clients. I believe writing should demonstrate clear evidence of a trainee’s understanding of the multiple aspects of cultural humility across multiple domains of diversity (i.e., race, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, access to resources), be strengths-based, and free of personal biases and judgements. 
 
Upon completion of training, my hope is that trainees will possess the ability to integrate information gathered during an intake interview, with clinical questionnaires and other assessment tools that support the therapeutic process. Further, I hope trainees will be able to write clinical summaries and treatment plans that are not only an accurate representation of the client, but are also concise, coherent, and free flowing.

Inpatient  EXPERIENCE:

Sherry Paden, PsyD, is an attending psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) on the Inpatient Psychiatry Service and is on faculty at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Dr. Paden has extensive experience treating suicidal ideation, self-harm, and suicide attempts among youth in acute psychiatric treatment settings. As HMS faculty, Dr. Paden provides supervision to psychiatry residents and fellows on the inpatient and outpatient psychiatry services at BCH.
​

DBT Experience

During her graduate training, Dr. Paden worked as a Community Residence Counselor at McLean Hospital – 3East Adolescent DBT Program (2016-2020). In 2020, Dr. Paden completed DBT training with Armida Fruzzetti, PhD, as part of her requirements for her predoctoral internship at Casa Pacifica Center for Children and Families. Most recently, Dr. Paden completed the Five-Day DBT Foundational Training through Cognitive Behavioral Consultants (CBC), presented by Alex Miller, PsyD (2023). Dr. Paden currently co-leads DBT rounds for trainees and the Holistic Learning DBT group with Dr. Perna.

"At CCS, training is a team sport"

  I tell all of our trainees:                                                                                
"Sometimes we worry, but we never worry alone."
​We rely on our team for support and direction every day. . .
​                                                                               -Dr. Perna

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​Holistic Testing/Assessment

​Clinical Writing

​Holistic DBT
​Multi-Modality Treatment ​

Trainees also complete customized testing batteries that are designed to clinically assess a range of learning and clinical issues. Reports also frequently help patients track into our Anger Management Treatment Program's curriculum by providing them with a clearly delineated pathway of treatment.   

​

​Batteries generally include:

General Tests:

• WAIS-4
• WISC-5
• PAI-A
• BASC-3

Achievement Tests:

• TOWL-4
• WIAT-4
• WRAT-5

Neuropsychological Tests:

• DKEFS
• BRIEF-2
• RCF/ROCF

Anger Tests:

• State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI)
• Aggression Questionnaire (AQ)
• Adolescent Anger Rating Scale (AARS)
• Novaco Anger Scale (NAS)

Testing Progression:
Since most clinical referrals have had multiple prior testing batteries completed, trainees will have the opportunity to appreciate a developmental progression of  testing as patients mature from past treatments/placements and current progressions.

School Coordination: 
School meetings typically include a review of school-based reports including: 

• Speech and language evaluations
• Neuropsychological evaluations
• Occupational therapy evaluations
• Assistive Technology evaluations
• Reading evaluations
• Functional behavior assessments

​Trainees will have the opportunity to train with CCS colleagues and review neuropsychological  test reports with them in addition to sitting in on consultations with educational lawyers/advocates that discuss legal concerns related to educational cases. ​

Trainees produce written reports related to typical clinical interactions (treatment plans, weekly clinical notes, group process notes) in addition to  psychological testing, IEP development, developmentally specific educational reports, criminal court litigation documentation, behavioral plans, documents related to educational litigation, and single case agreements requests filed with insurance companies, completion of Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and Department of Mental Health Services (DMH) referrals with a schedule of attached supporting documentation is also standard. 

Clinical Tutoring:
​Please refer to the Clinical Tutoring Page (click) in order to understand how learning and clinical interventions are combined to address the unique needs of our adolescent and college transition populations. Many of our trainees learn a tremendous amount in these sessions. Specifically, how expressive writing impacts a patient's stress levels and academic progress in their respective school placements. ​

Trainees also work with  DBT group participants in individual/family therapy/group therapy modalities. Drs. Perna and Paden are both DBT-F certified psychologists who utilize Rathus and Miller's 2015-DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents  to implement treatment utilizing a unique, learning intensive model that is holistic in its approach to treatment.  For more information about this model, please refer to our DBT page (Click).