Dr. Jessica Westcott (formerly Schroeder Abrams)
PhD, CPsych
Psychologist
Dr. Jessica Westcott is registered as a clinical and school psychologist with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity College at the University of Toronto and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical-Developmental Psychology at York University. Dr. Westcott completed her pre-doctoral internship at SickKids and her clinical training at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Oshawa Psychological and Counselling Services. She has previously worked at York Region District School Board and Surrey Place Centre. More recently, Dr. Westcott was a staff psychologist and then Chief Psychologist at the Durham Catholic District School Board. Dr. Westcott is currently the Director of the York University Psychology Clinic, where she provides supervision and training to graduate students in the clinical psychology programs.
Dr. Westcott provides comprehensive psycho-educational assessment to children and adolescents with a range of academic, cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties to help guide educational and treatment planning and to help students identify their strengths and learn how to use them to help manage their challenges. Dr. Westcott provides individualized therapy to support children, youth, and adults presenting with a variety of needs, including autistic folks, those with learning difficulties, attention regulation difficulties (ADHD), emotion dysregulation, anxiety, and behavioural difficulties. She has worked with autistic individuals for over 20 years. She has a particular interest in supporting the mental health of neurodiverse individuals and she provides comprehensive autism and ADHD assessments to children, adolescents, and adults. She has extensive program evaluation experience and she has collaborated on several research studies and published numerous papers regarding cognitive and social information processing, mental health, and bullying experiences of autistic youth.
Dr. Westcott has previously taught at York University and the University of Toronto and she has conducted several training workshops. She has completed additional training in a broad range of topics, including: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for anxiety, insomnia, depression, and ADHD, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), trauma and grief, autism assessment (ADI-R, ADOS-2, CAR-2S, ACIA, MIDGAS-2), ADHD assessment with adults, intervention for selective mutism,, high-conflict divorce, and ASIST (suicide intervention).