Ms Gail Nunes
Licensed Mental Health Counselor
Gail is a part-time clinician at New England Center for OCD and Anxiety, where she works with young children, adolescents, adults, and parents. Gail has received training in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Neurobiology, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Trauma based therapy, Sensory-motor therapy, play based therapy, social pragmatics and Mindfulness Training.
Gail received her counseling degree from Lesley University and then went on to study leadership and policy at Harvard University where she earned a Conant Fellowship. For nearly three decades, Gail had worked in both private day and public schools. She began her school career as the liaison to Head Start programs from the Special Start program in the Cambridge Public Schools. Later she was invited to be the School Social Worker in an elementary school in Cambridge and retired from that position several years ago. While there, she provided support for individual students, families and teachers in social emotional growth and development as well as individual and group counseling. She also supported administrators on how to create effective plans that increased students’ self regulation skills, making discipline a positive experience.
In addition, she planned and implemented a career exploration and advisory curriculum for middle school students that resulted in a “Day at Work” mentorship program for students based on their career interests. She brought training on trauma sensitivity, mindfulness and other resources to the classrooms to help students and teachers to understand the neuroscience behind their thoughts, feelings, sensations and urges coupled with an understanding of how their executive functioning needs impacted their academic work. She also conducted ongoing support meetings for parents of children with special needs as well as groups for adoptive parents. She provided key leadership in creating wrap-around plans for students in crisis. In addition, she mentored counseling interns from BU, Harvard, Suffolk, Lesley, Northeastern and BC graduate schools. Finally, she led professional development for counselors and teachers across the district in providing support for students in the wake of COVID-19.
Currently, Gail works at NECOA with clients from across the life span to become more curious about their thoughts and feelings, empowering them to become more flexible in their thinking. In addition, she recognizes the importance of helping our young people to use their voice to gain autonomy and agency while enriching their lives and following their values, so that they may recognize their ability to move forward even when it feels challenging to do so.
