Meet
Us
John Simoncelli, LCSW, LADC, MPA
Executive Director
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John holds master’s degrees in Social Work and Public Administration from the University of Connecticut. He has worked in the mental health field for over twenty years, joining Greenwoods as the Executive Director in 2017. Under his leadership, Greenwoods’ clinician network has grown to more than 160 licensed providers, greatly expanding access to care across Litchfield County. Greenwoods now also offers direct counseling, addiction outreach, and school partnerships.
Before joining Greenwoods, John founded and directed Authentic Recovery, LLC, a private practice group launched in 2014. He believes a genuine therapeutic relationship is essential for meaningful change.
John is passionate about educating the public on the connection between trauma, addiction, and mental health. He was named one of Litchfield County’s “40 Under 40” by the Northwest CT Chamber of Commerce and is committed to ensuring equitable access to quality mental health services.
Marisa Johnson
Director of Development
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Marisa is a passionate advocate for high quality, accessible mental healthcare. Having experienced personally the redemptive power of therapy – as well as various barriers to care – Marisa is proud to bring her 12 years of experience in nonprofit fundraising and development to Greenwoods.
Marisa’s career in Development began at an education access organization in Hartford, where she cultivated her passion for serving the community. In 2017, while working with various community-based health and education organizations in Hartford and New Haven, Marisa joined Greenwoods as the organization’s first Grants Manager. In that role, Marisa distinguished herself through a unique balance of granular precision in daily tasks and high-level, strategic thinking that prioritizes program sustainability and organization longevity. Promoted to Greenwoods’ Director of Development in 2022, Marisa now spearheads all fundraising initiatives in partnership with the Board of Directors, playing a pivotal role in advancing Greenwoods’ mission to provide vital mental health services to all who need them.
Marisa holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Connecticut.
Jason Kersten, LCSW
Clinical Director
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Jason empowers his clients and the Greenwoods team to achieve their goals by identifying pathways for meaningful change. He creates a safe, comfortable space where people can engage in the hard work necessary for lasting growth. Drawing on over 15 years of clinical experience and 10 years in leadership, Jason uses a strength-based, person-centered approach to work with adolescents, adults, and couples. He enjoys partnering with people through supervision or therapy to help them realize their strength and potential.
Ian Parker, LCSW
Director, Youth Mental Health Program
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With extensive experience in a variety of settings and positions, Ian has worked with adolescents, families, and adults through outpatient, residential, intensive outpatient and school settings. Ian has served in supervisory capacities and in directorship positions, working to enhance treatment, engagement and outcomes for those in need. Ian has presented to schools, social workers, therapists and leadership groups around increasing access for youth in mental health services, specific therapeutic and systemic interventions, crisis interventions and the intersection of AI and mental health. In therapeutic settings, he utilizes a variety of approaches, including psychodynamic interventions, specific trauma treatments and works from a strong relational engagement perspective. Ian completed his undergraduate degree at Providence College, with a bachelor’s in social work, followed by a master’s degree in social work at the University of Connecticut.
Genesis Bigos
Clinical Administrative Assistant
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Genesis is dedicated to helping everyone who reaches out feel welcomed, supported, and connected to care. She helps guide the daily flow of the office, intake, and scheduling—and is often the first voice you hear when you call Greenwoods. Genesis takes care to ensure each caller feels listened to and understood. As a bilingual team member, she is committed to connecting Spanish-speaking clients with the services they need. Her aim is to make every experience at Greenwoods smooth, kind, and compassionate.
Michele M. Sonnati
Operations Manager & Provider Relations Specialist
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Michele manages day-to-day operations with a collaborative approach. She helps teams prioritize, strengthens administrative processes, and streamlines workflows to make work smoother and more efficient. Michele enjoys implementing thoughtful policies and procedures that foster continuous improvement and a positive culture. Her goal is to contribute to the organization’s success through reliable administration and caring, effective operations.
Cecilia Gallo
Hiring & Special Projects
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Cecilia has been with Greenwoods since 2022. With a master’s degree in counseling psychology and over nine years of experience in school counseling, along with four years in educational administration, Cecilia brings a wealth of knowledge to her role. Passionate about the nonprofit mission, she is dedicated to fostering a culture of growth and collaboration. Known for her strategic approach, Cecilia excels in developing clear systems and efficiencies that empower teams to work seamlessly, ultimately enhancing the organization’s impact on the communities it serves.
Breanna Armento
Clinical Office Manager
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Breanna is a detail-oriented, efficient billing specialist with extensive experience. She began in primary care billing and transitioned to behavioral health, driven by her passion for the sector. Her responsibilities include maintaining client accounts, filing claims, posting insurance payments, assisting with financial aid, clinician credentialing, and more. Breanna approaches billing conversations with empathy and clarity, ensuring clients feel comfortable, informed, and aware of their options. She cares deeply about her work and genuinely enjoys supporting clients and the team.
Dominique Arno
Medical Billing and Revenue
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Dominique Arno is a medical billing and revenue cycle professional with over a decade of experience across dental, specialty, and payer-side healthcare settings. Her background spans insurance claims processing, prior authorizations, accounts payable and receivable, and provider support — most recently as a Provider Services Representative with Martin’s Point and an Intake Specialist with Cohere, where she helped launch a proprietary AI intake platform while maintaining 100% HIPAA compliance and 98% QA accuracy. She is based in New Hartford, Connecticut.
Cynthia Vail, LPC
Litchfield Site Supervisor
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As an educator, counselor, and supervisor. Through a primarily person-centered and humanistic approach, Cindy works to create a safe therapeutic space and strong therapeutic alliance to help individuals with a variety of mental health concerns, including those who have suffered trauma and grief. Cindy supports her clients in identifying and achieving their therapeutic goals by utilizing a wide variety of theoretical orientations and interventions that are implemented, as indicated, to meet her clients’ therapeutic needs. In her counseling work, Cindy is guided by two principles of the renowned therapist, Abraham Maslow: “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” and “In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth, or step back into safety. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
Sara Osborne, LPC, LADC
Youth Mental Health Clinician
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Sara is dedicated to walking alongside individuals on their path toward healing and wholeness. She understands the profound impact a compassionate, supportive space can have when navigating life’s challenges—an understanding that continues to shape her work and approach to supporting the wellbeing of others.
Sara works with individuals ages 18 and older and has experience supporting individuals navigating complex trauma, substance use disorders, mood disorders, and attachment-based patterns. She draws from a range of therapeutic modalities, including EMDR, family systems therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and solution-focused therapy, all grounded in a person-centered approach.
Brigid Cleary, LMFT
Clinician
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Brigid is committed to helping individuals, families and couples overcome adversity and achieve improved well-being. After years in veterinary medicine, she was inspired by the healing power of safe, compassionate spaces– ultimately influencing her decision to become a therapist. Brigid works with clients ages 18+ and finds great meaning in helping people navigate the journey of grief as well as supporting families who have a family member with a significant and chronic mental health diagnosis. She utilizes a number of modalities including Solution-Focused, EMDR, and Motivation Interviewing, all grounded in a person-centered approach.
Peter Kapitancek, LCSW
Clinician
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Pete is a dedicated therapist committed to helping adolescents, adults, and older adults achieve emotional clarity and meaningful change. He firmly believes that everyone deserves a safe, nonjudgmental space to explore their experiences and pursue healing. With a focus on navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, and ADHD, Pete utilizes evidence-based modalities including mindfulness, Solution-Focused Therapy, CBT, DBT, and EMDR. His approach is person-centered and collaborative, fostering empathy and tailoring treatment to each individual’s unique needs. His ultimate goal is to empower clients with the tools, insights, and confidence necessary to create lasting, positive transformations in their lives.
Meg Garceau, LCSW
Clinician
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Meg has a passion for working with a diverse range of individuals across the lifespan, offering support and empowerment to those looking to overcome adversity and improve well-being. Meg’s background in co-occurring disorders, as well as years of personal experiences have allowed her the innate capacity to understand and work with individuals from a place of unconditional positive-regard and compassionate understanding. Meg has provided treatment to individuals in a variety of settings including residential, school-based, in-home, intensive-outpatient and outpatient. Meg works with individuals ages 13+ and has significant experience working with adolescents, adults and families using various modalities including CBT, DBT, ACT, EMDR, IFS, SE, inner-child healing, narrative, creative-expressive and experiential therapies.
Michelle McDowell, LCSW
Clinician
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Michelle believes that therapy provides individuals with the tools to navigate life stressors, trauma and mood disorders. She creates a safe space for clients to explore their concerns, presenting them with a friendly, non-judgmental ear while introducing them to emotion regulation, trauma processing and problem-solving skills. Michelle enjoys working with elders and others facing life transitions and the burdens of caregiving and grief. She also finds purpose working with individuals struggling with substance use, offering hope and the opportunity for change based on her own journey in recovery. She utilizes aspects of CBT, DBT and narrative therapy to help clients envision new outcomes for themselves.
Manuelma (Anlly) Paulino, LMFT
Clinician
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Kate Lauretano, LPC
Youth Mental Health Clinician
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Kate has worked in the field since 2011 and became a licensed professional counselor in 2017. She has extensive experience with teens and adults, addressing a range of mental health concerns and everyday challenges. With a gentle, collaborative style, Kate integrates motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy to help clients build self-esteem, develop and use coping skills, and strengthen connections with others.
Erin Farley, LCSW
Clinician
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Erin is dedicated to helping individuals identify and build on their strengths to achieve greater life satisfaction. She understands that life is full of unexpected experiences, and that navigating them alone can be difficult. Erin approaches therapy from a humanistic perspective, grounded in the belief that people possess innate goodness, free will, and a natural drive toward self-actualization. As social beings who thrive on connection, she believes meaningful relationships are essential to healing—an understanding that inspired her to become a therapist.
Erin works with individuals ages 12+ and has experience addressing concerns such as anxiety, depression, trauma, disordered eating, body image issues, identity exploration, academic concerns, stress management, and interpersonal difficulties. She draws from a variety of therapeutic modalities and tailors her approach to meet each client’s needs, including CBT, DBT, ACT, EMDR, and motivational interviewing.
Steven Fuchs, LMSW
Clinician
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Steven is dedicated to helping individuals and couples identify the barriers impacting their well-being and personal goals. After navigating a traumatic period in his own life as a young adult, he developed a deep belief in each person’s capacity for growth and self-determination. This belief has shaped his career, during which he has worked with individuals (ages 14+) experiencing concerns related to school, family and relationship dynamics, financial stress, anxiety, depression, grief, life transitions, marital concerns, and harm reduction. Drawing on his background as both a social worker and business leader, he integrates CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, and other evidence-based modalities to meet each client’s unique needs. Steven is committed to creating a collaborative, supportive environment where clients can build resilience, develop practical skills, and create lasting positive change.
Felicia Michael, LPCA
Clinician
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Felicia brings warmth, compassion, and a gentle sense of humor to her work, while remaining sensitive to each client’s experience and needs. She believes in a collaborative, person-centered approach to therapeutic work, and is open to both practical and creative ways of addressing challenges. Felicia works with adults facing a range of concerns, including anxiety, depression, trauma, grief and loss, alcohol and substance use, life transitions, career changes, relationship concerns, caregiver stress, and the challenges that can accompany serious illness. Drawing on different approaches, including CBT and Motivational Interviewing, she adapts her work to the concerns of each individual. She strives to build a genuine, respectful therapeutic relationship grounded in connection and trust.
Sarah Toomey
Community Outreach
& Recovery Navigator
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Sarah is passionate about helping people along their journey with reducing or stopping substance use. She enjoys getting to know each client and helping them set goals that work best for them. Since recovery looks different for everyone, Sarah enjoys working on a unique plan and walking along side her clients through the process. Sarah also teaches CPR and Narcan trainings as part of her community outreach work. A retired firefighter, she provides peer support to emergency services personnel and is honored to serve fellow first responders.
Julia Jagger
Community Outreach
& Recovery Navigator
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Julia believes deeply in a client-led approach, supporting the people she works with in their own autonomy and giving them the tools they need to meet their goals. Julia is part of our outreach team, providing clinical services out in the community and focusing on underserved populations struggling with mental health and substance use concerns.
Toni Sterling
Community Outreach
& Recovery Navigator
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Toni meets people where they are—with compassion, respect, and grace. Recognizing the stigma and barriers faced by those living with mental health challenges and addiction, she advocates for individuals who feel unheard or unseen. Grounded in education, current information, and evidence-based practice, Toni works to reduce stigma and foster stronger, safer, more supportive communities. She supports anyone affected by addiction—including loved ones, friends, and family—by offering recovery options, removing barriers to basic needs and resources, and affirming every person’s worth. With Toni, there is always a steady, nonjudgmental hand to hold—and a partner walking beside you.
Join Us in Making a Difference
Your support is vital in helping our community access the mental health care they deserve. Whether you volunteer your time or contribute financially, you are helping families find hope and healing. Together, we can create a brighter tomorrow for those in need.