About the Facilitators

Thomas K. Hurster, M.S.S., L.C.S.W., C.G.P., AGPA-F has been working with children, adolescents, and their families, in different clinical capacities since the early 1970’s; he has worked in crisis intervention, inpatient psychiatric settings, community mental health, and in the private practice of psychotherapy. Tom has been with Benchmark School, an independent school for learning-disabled students in Media, PA, since 1981, where he has had several roles, including Family Consultant, Director of Admissions, and Supervisor of Child and Family Support Services. He presently also divides his time between private clinical practice in Bryn Mawr, and as a full-time adjunct faculty member at the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research (since 2002), where he annually teaches Group Treatment, Clinical Social Work Practice with Children and Adolescents, and Clinical Social Work in Schools. Regularly conducting a number of therapy groups in his psychotherapy practice (since 1986) and at Benchmark School, he currently is leading two mixed gender, mixed diagnosis open-ended relational psychotherapy groups for high school aged youth, and a SPACE (Supportive Parenting of Anxious Childhood Emotions) group for Benchmark parents. A Fellow in the American Group Psychotherapy Association, and regular faculty member at the annual AGPA CONNECT conference, he is also a co-chair of the AGPA’s Child and Adolescent Special Interest Group. Additionally, he has been on the board of the Philadelphia Area Group Psychotherapy Society since 2008. Tom is the author of “Ethically Informed Group Practice” in the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy.