Psychiatry & Behavioral Health at Island Hospital welcomes Jill Newman, MSW, LICSW as mental-health therapist and coordinator for the Anacortes School District Intervention & Mental Health Therapy program.

Newman’s primary role is to provide mental-health counseling for students at Anacortes Middle School, Anacortes High School, and Cap Sante High School. As a licensed clinical social worker, she offers mental health assessments, diagnosis and treatment plans for children, teens and their families.

Working collaboratively with her patients, she offers practical tools and coping strategies that help with challenges at school, at home, or in relationships with peers. As coordinator for the district intervention and mental-health therapy program, she works with school counselors, social workers, and administrators to provide consultation and crisis assistance as needed, including suicide risk assessment and safety planning.

Since 2007, Newman has been a therapist and crisis-intervention counselor for children, teens, and families from diverse ethnic communities in outpatient mental health programs. She held a clinical faculty appointment as an Instructor with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia from 2013–2019. During this time, she developed the family-therapy program for third-year psychiatry residents at Surrey Memorial Hospital and provided instruction and supervision for residents in the family therapy clinic.

Newman says that when working with teens and their families, she strives to strengthen relationships and ensures teens feel heard and respected. “Children and teens fare best when they have at least one parent or caregiver with whom they have a healthy relationship,” says Newman. “When I work with families in conflict, my focus is to strengthen the relationships between family members.”

Newman holds a Bachelor’s degree in communication from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada. She earned her Master’s degree in social work from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 2007.

For more information, contact the Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Clinic at 360-299-4297.