Delivering care during a pandemic presents great challenges, yet despite the obstacles, new Hagin School Consultation Center Director and GSE clinical assistant professor Angie Sjoquist, Ph.D., has big plans. She is firmly focused on ways to adapt and expand the center’s services under her leadership. The center is slated to add telehealth services to complement the on-site services that will now be delivered while observing carefully considered precautions. Sjoquist explains, “As complicated as these changes [to services]may be, we hope to meet an urgent need in the community for continued psychological services.”
For example, she expects to help meet many of the needs of students that had evaluations delayed due to closures during the current crisis or of individuals who need consultation and ongoing support for social emotional issues through adding telehealth services at the center. She is making immediate plans to expand services by providing early childhood assessment services, diagnostic assessment of autism spectrum disorders, and individual counseling services for children, adolescents, and young adults. Sjoquist specifically notes that for the early childhood population, research suggests earlier and more intensive support can be linked to improvement in developmental outcomes and school readiness. She says the Hagin center’s services will provide families with early identification of developmental concerns and corresponding support services that can lead to significant progress for young children, especially amidst the current pandemic.
More specifically, Sjoquist’s first goal is to maintain the Hagin center’s long-standing excellence in providing comprehensive psycho-educational assessments. She credits the center’s former director, Zsuzsanna Kiraly, GSE associate clinical professor, for building a solid foundation for the center to build upon. As the center reopens this fall, another urgent part of the center’s mission is ensuring their work is guided by anti-racist practice and is sensitive to the needs of people living within systems of oppression. Sjoquist shares that the center is fortunate to have Alea Holman, GSE assistant professor, join her as a clinical supervisor this fall. Her expertise in therapeutic collaborative assessment, non-biased assessment, and racial justice will help guide the center’s policies and procedures. Sjoquist, Holman, and other supervisors at the center identify as POC’s and understand the importance of making this a priority to best serve its clientele. Holman expects that “trainees will develop outstanding clinical skills, including increased cultural awareness and sensitivity. With this skill set, trainees will be equipped to make each interaction they have with a client affirming and healing.”
Angie Sjoquist earned her Ph.D. in School Psychology and her M.S. in Preschool Psychology from Fordham University. She also holds a B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University.
