ABOUT CIARA

 

Ciara Dockery, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and chief clinical advisor for Gurls Talk. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Ciara has spent the majority of her life devoted to promoting emotional wellness, assisting those in crisis and helping to foster meaning and connection in people’s lives. She has been a fierce advocate for stigma reduction around issues related to mental health and could not be happier to support Adwoa and the Gurls Talk community in those same efforts.

Throughout her career, Dr. Ciara’s main areas of focus have been in crisis intervention, suicide prevention, trauma-informed interventions, public outreach and large-scale mental health program development. In her private practice in NYC she specializes in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) interventions.

Dr. Ciara currently serves as the director of the NFL Life Line, a free and confidential 24/7 emotional wellness and suicide prevention hotline available to the entire National Football League (NFL) community through Vibrant Emotional Health. She also oversees Vibrant’s work with the National Basketball Association (NBA) focused on training initiatives and stigma reduction through the NBA Mind Health program.

In her previous roles at the New York State Office of Mental Health, she served as the Statewide Coordinator on Project Liberty, the $132 million dollar FEMA-funded mental health outreach response to the events of 9/11. She also served as the first network development coordinator during the development and implementation of the SAMHSA-funded National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK). Dr. Ciara has also worked and trained in community mental health inpatient, residential and outpatient settings such as at Kings County Hospital in central Brooklyn, The New York State Psychiatric Institute and Harvard’s McLean Hospital.

Dr. Ciara received her B.A. from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Fordham University. She also holds a M.A. in Journalism from New York University (NYU).