Kim McGarvey and Joan Musitano worked together for eighteen years at the Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. After many years of collaboration, they are pleased to offer their unique implementation of the Side-by-Side Model for helping families with young children at Upper West Side Parenting Support.

Upper West Side Parenting Support helps mothers and fathers in their transition to parenthood through family consultations and discussion and play groups. We address child development, behavior challenges, and common parenting concerns, such as sleep, eating and tantrums.

Kim McGarvey, LMSW, is a clinical social worker who specializes in infant and early childhood development. She received her Masters in Social Work from New York University and studied infant and parent development at Bank Street College of Education. Kim has worked with infants, children and parents in hospital, school and mental health settings for the past 22 years. She has experience working with typically developing children, as well as children with chronic illness, special needs and infants born prematurely.  She has also completed training in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders at Postpartum Support International.

For the past 15 years, Kim has been the Associate Program Coordinator of the Pacella Parent Child Center. Her responsibilities included facilitating the infant/toddler socialization groups and supervising graduate students who were learning about early childhood development and clinical work with infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

Joan Musitano, LMSW, MSEd is a child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapist with special expertise in the field of infant and parent development. For the past fifteen years, Joan worked at the Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in the capacity of Child Development Specialist and Parent Group Leader.

In her private practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Joan works with children of all ages and their parents, as well as with adolescents and individual adults and couples, in both short and long term treatment modalities. Joan’s approach to psychotherapy is essentially psychodynamic and relational, although her many years of working with children and parents have led her to adopt an eclectic and pragmatic style.

After obtaining her Master of Social Work at Hunter College and her Master of Science in Education in Infant and Parent Development and Early Intervention from Bank Street College of Education, Joan received her certificate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy at the William Alanson White Institute.  She recently completed the PSI (Postpartum Support International) training in  perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

Joan has an international background, allowing her to be comfortable with families of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds and to practice in English, French, and Italian.

Private office:
15 West 72nd Street
Suite 1M
New York, NY 10023
Tel. (917) 902-2050

IN LOVING GRATITUDE

Kim McGarvey and Joan Musitano deeply mourn the loss of ALICE ROSENMAN, MS, LCSW, who passed away on February 15, 2016.

Upper West Side Parenting Support was created by Alice Rosenman, Kim McGarvey and Joan Musitano who had worked together for 18 years at the Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Alice was largely responsible for developing the version of the Side-by-Side model that made the groups at Pacella so successful.

Alice was mentor to both Joan and Kim, inspiring them with her extensive knowledge and exquisite clinical skills, honed over four decades of working in the field, and passing on to them her passionate belief in the curative power of parent-child work.

Alice’s voice is ever present as we strive to continue to offer the best possible services to children and families, as Alice wished us to do.

Alice’s professional life spanned four decades.  She had Masters degrees from Bank Street College of Education in Early Childhood Special Education and from New York University School of Social Work. She trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at Metropolitan Institute. For many years Alice headed The Payne Whitney Therapeutic Nursery, of New York Hospital, working with special needs children and their parents.  From 1996 to 2014,  Alice was the program coordinator of The Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Her responsibilities included initial meetings with parent-child dyads, supervising the externship component of the program, as well as leading side-by-side groups for women with typically developing children aged birth to three. Throughout her career, Alice had a private office in New York City where she practiced adult psychotherapy, child therapy and parent counseling.