About Jessica Hardial, MA, LCSW, PhD(c)

Jessica Hardial, MA, LCSW, PhD (c) is a bilingual clinical social worker who has over 10 years of social work experience.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, raised in Queens, NY.  She completed Bachelor's Degree from Queens College in Psychology & Sociology with a Minor in Student Counseling. She began working in a homeless shelter for families for some time. This allowed her to learn about her passion for helping children and families. While working there, she witnessed many children being removed from their parents and she began her quest to foster care. 

She began working as a therapeutic caseworker for a foster care agency and absolutely loved it. She found a passion for helping parents complete their service plans to be reunited with their children. While working in foster care, she began her Master's in Social Work program at Fordham University part time. When she received her MSW degree, she was promoted to Foster Care Supervisor. She worked in the foster care system for approximately 5 years. It was an extremely rewarding experience. While working there, she noticed the disparity between foster care children and school completion.

While keeping her passion alive, she transitioned into a school social worker role for the NYC Department of Education in East New York, Brooklyn. She have been a school social worker for the past 6 years and strives to provide the best service possible to her students. She strives to equip them with the tools to reach their full potentials. 

While working as a school social worker, she began working at a mental health clinic to gain clinical experience and fell in love with clinical practice. Although she worked as a school social worker and as a psychotherapist, her passion for foster care remained. She decided to pursue her PhD and focus her research on young adults who were discharged from the foster care system.  She aims to improve my practice by incorporating her research on human development.  

Her experiences enables her to offer effective outpatient, individualized service. She specializes in children, adolescents, & family therapy. She has received specialized training within the LGBTQIA+ community, trauma and clinical supervision of clinicians.