MD/DC APT Board

President of the Board:

Betsy Wendt, MC, NCC is a long-standing Board member and a professional counselor in the DC Public Schools.  She works at Marie Reed Community Learning Center, an elementary school, as a bilingual counselor. For the past several years, Betsy has been fortunate to supervise social work interns from Gallaudet University and counseling interns from Trinity University.

Board Members:

Liz Aparicio, MSW, LCSW-C/LICSW, RPT  has five years of play therapy experience in residential and outpatient mental health settings, and as an early childhood mental health consultant for preschools, daycare programs, and nursery schools. Liz is a first year doctoral student in Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and is a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Maternal and Child Health Social Work Education. She maintains a private practice in Silver Spring, MD where she provides play therapy for pre-school and school-aged children, individual therapy for adults, and play therapy supervision.

Florence Augustin, MSW, LICSW, RPT serviced school-aged children in the DC Public Schools in both regular and special education as a School Social Worker for thirty years. Following her retirement, Florence discovered play therapy and sandtray therapy and these modalities became her new horizon. Now, as a Clinical Social Worker and a Registered Play Therapist, Florence has joined a mental health practice that focuses on play therapy and is enjoying the experiences of meeting the developmental needs of the same population while applying the therapeutic power of play.

Stephanie Handel, is a therapist at the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing specializing in grief and trauma. She provides individual, family and group counseling. Stephanie serves as the Director of Camp Forget-Me-Not/Camp Erin DC, the Wendt Center’s 3 day grief camp for children and teens who experienced a loss due to death. She has participated as a mental health first responder for past community crises. She has presented, trained and published on topics of HIV/AIDS, children, crisis response, traumatic death, 9/11, attachment, trauma, grief, loss, play therapy and alternative interventions. Stephanie is a contributor to the recently published “Childhood Traumatic Grief: A Multi-Site Empirical Examination of the Construct and its Correlates" in Death Studies and “Creative Interventions for Bereaved Children” by Liana Lowenstein. Stephanie was a 2009 NASW Passionate Social Worker awardee.

Bill McNulty, MA, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW, RPT-S has been practicing psychotherapy for over ten years and has been a member of the board since 2003.  He has experience working in a residential treatment center, level 5 non-public school with emotionally disturbed adolescents, outpatient mental health clinics, and as an early childhood mental health consultant.  Bill is currently working at the Reginald S. Lourie Center their mental health clinic and in their Therapeutic Nursery Program.  He also has a private practice in Bethesda where he works with children, adolescents, and their families and does play therapy supervision with RPT candidates.

Contact Information

Liz Aparicio

liz.aparicio.lcswc@hotmail.com

Stephanie Handel

grover71@hotmail.com

Bill McNulty

md.dc.apt@gmail.com