Thom’s mission, to provide community-based, collaborative, culturally sensitive and comprehensive services, consultation and training to young children, their families and others in the community who care for them, is at the core of everything we do. With this in mind, a new position has been created at the agency level to support clinical service delivery, integration of evidence-based practices into our community-based work, and meaningful data collection to inform the agency, collaborators, clients, and other stakeholders.
We are thrilled to welcome Cathy Leslie, who previously worked as an occupational therapist at Thom Westfield Infant Toddler Services, back to Thom as the Director of Clinical Services. Cathy completed a PhD in Rehabilitation Science at MGH Institute of Health Professions (IHP) in Boston, MA focused on health communication, health literacy, and health equity in early intervention. She worked as an Assistant Professor on the faculty of the Doctor of Occupational Therapy Program at the MGH IHP and taught courses related to pediatrics, health communication, research, and early intervention. Cathy’s research has been shared through national conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications. She is the Principal Investigator for a grant funded Community-Academic Partnership with the Early Head Start/ Head Start in Charlestown, MA focused on increasing access to EI, increasing data informed decision making, and providing occupational and speech services with IHP graduate students and faculty at their site. We are thrilled to have Cathy’s expertise to support our clinical services throughout the Commonwealth. Cathy lives on a sailboat in Charlestown with her husband, Bill, and is a mom to two adult daughters, Naomi, and Georgea.