NEWS

from Central Connecticut State University
Honored as a "Leadership Institution" by the Association of American Colleges & Universities

Media contact: Bart Fisher, Associate Director of Marketing and Communications
(860) 832-1624; Fisherb@ccsu.edu 

Open House Planned September 25 for New CCSU/Klingberg Family Therapy Institute Collaboration

NEW BRITAIN, (September 20, 2007) – The Klingberg/CCSU Family Therapy Institute (FTI) will host a Grand Opening ceremony and Open House, September 25.  The new facility, located on the fourth floor of Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Technology and Business Development at 185 Main Street, will provide a unique setting in which clinical, academic and on-going research activities are aimed at strengthening families and solving complex community problems.  The 3-6 p.m. event is open to the public. Institute personnel will be on hand to provide tours of the premises.

The collaborative effort, 14 years in the making, according to Dr. Ralph S. Cohen, CCSU’s Marriage and Family Therapy program director, will provide systems-oriented and psychiatric services to children and adults in the New Britain metropolitan area while at the same time offering master’s degree students in the CCSU Marriage and Family Therapy Program a state-of-the-art training facility where they can hone their skills as therapists under the expert supervision of an outstanding clinical faculty.

Based on the design of teaching hospitals and research institutes, the (FTI) allows student therapists and highly experienced faculty to work side-by-side, providing the most innovative, sophisticated and effective research-based clinical treatment possible.  “At the Family Therapy Institute,” Dr. Cohen said, “The aim of the collaboration is to better the community by providing mental health and family services to people who have not had the opportunity to receive the help they need."  The CCSU professor added, "Typically, people are on a waiting list for six to twelve months before treatment. We can take emergency cases within two hours and urgent cases within two days."

Central students will also see both immediate and long terms benefits from their participation in the collaborative program.  "We will provide students state-of-the-art training opportunities so they can become the best in their field after their graduation and give them the tools they need to be successful."  This is another example of Central Connecticut State University’s positive participation in the community, a participation that mutually benefits the community and CCSU students in many ways.

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