Partners' Corner

Elizabeth Warner is a licensed psychologist with 40 years of experience working with children and families in psychiatric inpatient and outpatient settings, schools, mental health clinics and residential treatment, as well as in her private practice.   Early in her career, she spent 15 years working with severely disordered children including traumatized children and their parents, using innovative treatment methodologies and videotape for process study at the Language & Cognitive Development Center.

In the last 12 years, her focus has been on development of innovative treatment for children from 1.5 years to 22 years whose lives have been impacted by chronic stress and complex trauma, and their caregivers.  As project director at the Trauma Center at JRI, a center of excellence in trauma treatment, training and research, she oversaw training and consultation in Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART) for outpatient, in-home, therapeutic day school, and residential treatment settings in the U.S., Canada and Hong Kong. She also collaborated with Tiffany Naste of JRI and her community-based therapists to develop SMART applications for in-home therapy, and constructed two videotape coding systems for studying regulatory processes in treatment.

As a partner in SMARTMoves LLC, she continues to train and consult to therapists. She is conducting research through videotape study and treatment outcome studies, in order to test out hypotheses about the impact of sensory motor interventions and somatic regulation in trauma treatments. Dr. Warner maintains a private practice for adult psychotherapy and parent consultation in Brookline, MA.

Heather Finn, LICSW, a founding partner of SMARTmoves, LLC, and a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in the treatment of children, adolescents, and families impacted by experiences of complex trauma and adversity.  Since obtaining her MSW from Smith College School for Social Work in 2001, Heather has served children and families in a variety of settings including:  residential, homeless shelter, community based and outpatient treatment programs.  She was first introduced to the SMART model in 2009 at the Trauma Center at JRI, and contributed to the development of the model as a member of the training and consulting team.   Presently, as a partner in SMARTmoves, Heather continues to train and consult to clinicians working in outpatient and residential treatment programs across the United States. She is also the lead co-author of the article The Boy Who Was Hit in the Face:  Somatic Regulation and Processing of Preverbal Complex Trauma, published through the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma in 2017.  In addition to her work with SMARTmoves, Heather provides trauma informed therapeutic services and professional supervision through her private practice in Boston, MA.

Dr. Cook graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Psychology and then obtained her M.A. and Ph.D. at Boston University. After completing her post-doctoral fellowship at the Trauma Center, she went on to become the Director of Children’s Services, then Director of Development, and finally, the Associate Director. Currently, she is serving on the Board of the Trauma Research Foundation, and is a partner in the SMARTMoves, LLC.

Dr. Cook is one of the co-developers of SMART, and a co-author of the SMART Manual. She was the lead author on The White Paper, Complex Trauma in Children and Adolescents, and co-authored the book With the Phoenix Rising: Lessons from Ten Resilient Women Who Overcame the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse.

Anne Westcott, LICSW has worked with children and families impacted by trauma and chronic stress since she began her career in community support work in 1985. Obtaining her Master’s Degree at Columbia University School of Social Work and her BA in Political Science and International Relations from Carleton College, she went on to develop school-based mental health programs in Boston, worked on an interdisciplinary outreach team servicing the most vulnerable children in Essex County MA.

Anne has trained and supervised clinicians for over 20 years in outpatient, home-based, and residential settings. Formerly a supervisor at the Trauma Center @ JRI, Anne co-developed SMART, integrating this approach into her private practice. In addition, she speaks across the US and Canada on somatic psychotherapy approaches to treatment and has provided depth training to 100’s of clinicians on the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ Approach. Anne is also the co-author of the Hidden Strengths Children’s Series on human resilience in the face of hardship.