Dr. Fagen's background includes positions as social skills therapist for the Jewish Social Service Agency; school psychologist, supervisor of special education training and director of staff development for Montgomery County Public Schools; associate director of the Hillcrest Children’s Center-Children’s Hospital Psychoeducational Institute; and chief child psychologist for the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr. Fagen established and led the social skills therapy program for JSSA, and directed the Inservice for Mainstreaming Program and Special Education Parent Information Center in MCPS. He has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, a B.S. in Psychology from Brooklyn College. and a Certificate in Group Therapy from the Washington School of Psychiatry, His many publications include books and manuals on teaching children self-control; behavior management; individual and group counseling; promoting successful mainstreaming; and helping parent’s enhance their child’s social progress.
Dr. Fagen is a well-known community leader of social skills therapy groups. He has widespread experience in school, hospital and clinic settings promoting success for youth struggling to make and keep friends. Dr. Fagen models a child- centered, strengths-based approach which creates a trusting relationship allowing for practice and coaching in desirable behaviors and correction of social mistakes. With more than twenty five years conducting these groups, Dr. Fagen has found that children and adolescents can gain the confidence, knowledge and skills for developing positive relationships. He has demonstrated that effective social skills therapy groups can help overcome discouraging past experiences of social frustration or failure and initiate an optimistic identity as a socially valuable person.