Clinician Profiles

Family Resource and Development Center, LLC

A Partnership Toward Change...

Clinical Staff

Geoff Genser, LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who received his Masters in Social Work from Simmons College in Boston,Massachusetts. He is licensed to practice individual, family, and group therapy in the state of Connecticut. Geoff has spent the past 12 years working with adolescents and their families in a variety of settings in towns and communities in and surrounding Boston and Hartford. Geoff has done a lot of work with adolescents and families involved with multiple systems including, schools, courts, DCF, state treatment and detention facilities, outpatient and inpatient psychiatric centers. When appropriate, Geoff collaborates with these systems to ensure that the young people he serves are receiving the necessary care and attention.

Geoff has focused his practice around engaging young people who often struggle with stressors connected to social difficulties, conflict in family relationships, academic problems, and difficulty regulating their moods and behaviors. He works with adolescents and young adults who often struggle on a regular basis with life and death issues connected to street and gang violence. He supports them in coping with current and past traumas and making decisions that allow them to rise above daily stressors and move toward personal goals in the major domains of their lives. Geoff also provides education and counseling to young people and their families living in the Greater Hartford area, as they face challenges associated with substance abuse. He uses strength-based, motivational counseling to help people identify problems with drugs and alcohol and systematically move toward reduction and cessation.

In addition to office based treatment, Geoff often meets with clients in their homes and community settings to affect change in their natural environments. He believes that individuals and families have under-utilized strengths that can move them toward personal change and success. Geoff uses Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and Narrative and Solution-Focused Therapy to help clients develop skill-sets to face treatment issues including: depression, anxiety, conduct disorders, personality disorders, ADHD; school difficulties (academic problems and altercations w/peers and teachers), arguing and fighting with family members, substance abuse, sexual identity struggles (GLBT youth and their families); grief and loss, difficulty making and keeping friends, adoption, coping with separation from family, living in foster care, and preparing for independence /self-sufficiency.

For more information about Geoff Genser's practice, please visit his website at www.ggclinical.com.

Daniel Weiner, LPC holds a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hartford. He became a Licensed Clinician (LPC) in 1998 and he is a National Board Certified Counselor. Daniel has worked in multiple treatment settings and has specialized in the care of children and adolescents for the past 12 years. Specifically, he was the clinical director of Child Services at Saint Francis Care Behavioral Health in the late 1990’s, which consisted of overseeing the inpatient and partial hospital facilities in Portland, CT. Since leaving Saint Francis, he has focused on the development of a child and adolescent outpatient private practice that provides a variety of different services.

In recent years Daniel has developed an extensive interest in, and emphasis on, treating ADHD, High Functioning Autism/Aspergers Syndrome, and other neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric issues which can impact educational, emotional, and behavioral functioning. His emphasis in treatment is on supporting the child or adolescent by educating them on their issues, exploring their difficulties in a constructive manner, and developing strategies to help them improve emotionally, cognitively and behaviorally.

He believes, as do many other mental health providers, that most children and adolescents want to be successful, despite their various issues. It is this belief that drives his interventions, which are highly empathic, yet goal directed. It is his ultimate intent to create a setting that provides children, adolescents, and family members the opportunity to gain further insight into their issues and grow in a positive manner.

For more information about Dan Weiner's practice, please visit his website at www.dwtherapy.net.

Marc Lehman, LMFT is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a certified Divorce Mediator. He received his Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from The University of Connecticut. His areas of clinical specialty are child and adolescent psychotherapy, relationship counseling, parent coaching and adult individual counseling with a focus on parenting / co-parenting and family management.

Mr. Lehman consults with several public schools in the area, and gives talks in the community on various topics related to mental health. He has worked at inpatient hospitals, partial hospital programs, and various outpatient facilities.

Mr. Lehman has experience teaming with local attorneys and coaching parents through the process of divorce.. Creating parenting plans, proactively addressing post divorce issues, and assisting parents in communicating in healthy ways are all aspects of Mr. Lehman's work with divorcing couples.

His work with children and adolescents, is a combination of individual and family treatment. His focus is on the whole family system and improving its level of functioning. His treatment is based on the belief that when change occurs for one person in a family, it affects that person and others around them. This change raises a person’s self esteem and allows them to really enjoy life.

The decision to begin therapy is one that may have important results for families. Mr. Lehman strongly encourages family involvement in counseling, and a commitment toward positive change. It is with the combination of both that allows families access to healthier living.

Denise Scheuy, M.A., Counseling & Family Therapy is the newest member of the FRDC team, and a graduate of the University of Hartford and St. Joseph College. Her clinical interests include addressing the many challenges of special needs children, teens and their families; particularly those with AD/HD, Asperger’s Syndrome and other related, co-occurring disorders. Her counseling is holistic in approach, and includes strengths-based, solution-focused, family and internal systems, and cognitive-behavioral models. She is committed to facilitating collaborative relationships with clients, empowering them to take positive risks towards change.

As a parent of two special needs children (now young adults), Denise offers a unique and compassionate perspective to the counseling process, having walked the walk of parents engaged in this daunting task. She has a keen awareness of clients’ needs, and deep degree of empathy; balanced with the ability to offer practical approaches, skills, knowledge and related life experience to the therapeutic counseling partnership.

In addition, Denise has fifteen years of experience as a licensed, certified occupational therapist, working in multiple settings, with all age groups; treating clients with physical and/or psychological disabilities. She is a former Program Coordinator for the CT Birth to Three Program, providing wraparound services (case management, counseling and treatment interventions) for infants/toddlers and their families, within their homes and in the community. She has also mentored middle-school students, providing one-on-one support for at-risk teens, facilitated support groups for teen parents, and has counseled college students at Eastern Conn. State University Counseling Center. Denise was also instrumental in co-creating a Parent Support Group for parents of children with AD/HD, affiliated with Eastern CT. Health Network and Manchester Memorial Hospital. As a former coordinator of the East of the River H.U.S.K.Y. Program, she has provided education, intervention and support for low-income families in their struggle to access appropriate physical and behavioral health services.

Her goals are to continue to provide individual and group therapies, as well as community education and outreach. Her hopes are that through these endeavors, the social stigma related to any “difference” will be minimized; as these differences are better understood and accepted. “The difference does not define who you are.”

Molly McDonald, MFT received her B.A. From The University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1989 and her M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fairfield University in 1999. Molly comes to us with nearly 20 years experience working with children and families. She began working as a Crisis Interventionist at Cooperative Educational Services (CES)in Fairfield. CES is a special education school that deals with children who have been removed from their school district for behaviors that interferred with learning. For 7 years she worked directly with the students who presented with severe behavioral issues such as aggression, stealing, lying, running away, substance abuse, and truancy.

The last 11 years she has worked at The Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic in New Haven as a Senior Behavioral Clinican. She is a specialist in the use of Parent Management Training (PMT), which is a highly effective proven to work parenting program. She is one of only a few clinicans in the world that has been trained in PMT at Yale. She has worked closely with one of the leading experts in child psychology, Dr. Alan Kazdin Ph.D. PMT is an innovative approach to parenting that has been shown to increase positive behaviors in children quickly, and in turn decrease problems ones. It comes with nearly an 80% success rate in children between the ages of 2 and 13. Molly meets with the parents and teaches them simple skills that they implement at home with their children. PMT can be effective for a wide variety of problems from mild behaviors such as potty training and following directions to more concerning behaviors such as aggession, talking back, and school/homework issues. After completing the program, most parents report more cooperation in all areas of the children's lives and decreased stress in the home. PMT can be effective with children diagnosed with Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and ADHD among others. Some parents complete PMT before the decision to use medications to manage behaviors, because PMT can often flush out what behaviors are changable and what behaviors are out of the child's control.

Molly's philosophy is that parenting is the most important job and yet it can be one of the most challenging and frustrating. Parents today are juggling many different areas of their lives and dealing with a mulitude of stressors. It can be difficult for parents to know how to react in certain situations and remain consistent. Molly will help you to be prepared and feel confident in those moments throughout the day. She works with all types of families, from foster parents, to parents awaiting the arrival of their child and want to be prepared. Group trainings can also be arranged. She generally meets with parents for 6 sessions however, she can individualize the sessions to meet the needs of the family. She is looking forward to meeting with you and making family time fun again.