Children's Center for Hope and Healing gets new executive director

GAINESVILLE - The Board for the Children's Center for Hope and Healing has chosen Betty Guilfoile as the agency's new executive director.

Guilfoile comes to Hope and Healing with many years of experience, both as a clinician and as a manager of small and large mental health organizations.

Professionally, Guilfoile has been a LMFT (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) since 1990. Most of her early career was spent working with children and young adults as the town youth counselor in Cheshire, Connecticut from 1988 to 1996. She was also a school based addictions counselor for three years in public middle and high schools. In 2001, she became the Executive Director for a small substance abuse prevention organization where she worked with different towns and non-profits to implement prevention programming in schools, courts and youth serving agencies.

Guilfoile moved to Gainesville in 2004, and in 2006 she started at Avita Community Partners as the Director of Child and Adolescent Day Services, later moving up to the Regional Director in Hall County. She has been married for 27 years to Bill Guilfoile, and they have twin daughters, Gen and Tess, who will begin their senior years in college next month.

"I think my strengths are to build relationships and solve problems," Mrs. Guilfoile said. "I believe in an open-door, solution-focused style of management, and I am always open to other ideas and opinions of how things work and how things should be."

NEW ITERNS

The Children's Center for Hope and Healing also welcomes several new therapeutic interns: Amanda Johnson attends Mercer University where she is pursuing an M.S. in Clinical Health Counseling; Anna Packer attends Brenau University where she is working on an M.S. in Clinical Counseling Psychology; Ellis Jones, attending Mercer University for an M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling; Natasha Ramsey, a student at Liberty University, who is studying for an M.A. in Professional Counseling; and Shena Locke, attending Mercer University for an M.S. in Clinical Mental Health and School Counseling.

New to the administrative team is intern Elizabeth Fielden, who is currently attending North Georgia College and State University pursuing a Masters in Public Administration.

The Children's Center for Hope & Healing is a non-profit organization, dedicated to breaking the cycle of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
To learn more information about the Children's Center for Hope and Healing, visit www.hopeandhealingga.org where you can sign up for their newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter at @gacchh or @gahopehealing. You may also e-mail them at [email protected], or call 770.532.6530.