Molly Baron, M.A.

Recently retired from the practice, Molly Baron remains involved with the firm and client work for the therapeutic practice. Molly is a nationally recognized expert on the placement of children, adolescents, and young adults with therapeutic special needs. Trained in the United States and Europe, Molly is very adept at understanding the interplay between cognitive and psychological issues and how they impact a child’s ability to function in school, at home and the world at large. Her training in family systems therapy provides Molly with a keen sense of the family dynamics, as they relate to the current crisis and the implications for treatment. This comprehensive clinical foundation is key to understanding the educational, emotional and family life of a child and informs Molly’s work to develop appropriate educational/therapeutic treatment options for the individual child and family. Her attention to the family experience during the treatment process prompted Molly to author an article, “Therapeutic School Placement: Parallel Processes of Change in Children and Their Parents,” which has been nationally recognized.

Believing that one can best understand a particular school or program by directly observing the process in action, Molly has traveled extensively throughout the United States, visiting schools and programs, meeting with staff, spending time with the students and whenever possible, participating in the therapeutic and educational process.

Through the years of placement, traveling and training, she has developed relationships of trust and respect in the therapeutic community, both inpatient and outpatient. Program directors have often commented on how much they appreciate the thoroughness of her understanding of the social, emotional, educational and developmental needs of her clients and the implications of those issues for treatment.

Working in the challenging world of at-risk youth, Molly supported her early training by continuing education in the realm of emerging therapies, such as dialectal behavioral therapy, equine therapy, expressive therapies such as art and movement. In her previous work as a child and adolescent therapist, Molly recognized early on that no one modality suited every child and it was essential that a skilled clinician have a varied “toolbox” to bring to her work with young people. Although no longer practicing as a therapist, Molly’s understanding of the vast range of therapeutic offerings provides an important foundation to the therapeutic placement process in terms of identifying the most appropriate setting for your child.

Molly holds a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University and an M.A. in Behavioral Psychology. She was trained in Rome, Italy at the International Center for Psychological Services to undertake psychoeducational evaluations, play therapy, family systems therapy and adolescent counseling. Molly worked for six years as the Consulting Psychologist to the international schools in Rome. After living abroad for ten years, Molly returned to the United States in 1992. Shifting away from clinical practice, Molly joined Mallory, Baron, Ross, Kindler & Adeosun in 1993 to solely focus on educational consulting. She is often heard to remark, “I am never bored.” Though Molly has stopped seeing individual clients, she consults on programs and cases on a regular basis.

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