Allison Ventura, PhD, is an assistant professor and the director of the child and adolescent psychology and counseling services for the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville Department of Psychiatry.
Dr. Ventura is a child and adolescent psychologist who specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy and was the first certified clinician in Northeast Florida to hold the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification. She is also one of only a handful of providers in the state to have received this national certification status. She leads the DBT program at UF Health Psychiatry – San Jose, a program that treats patients with complex dysregulation, which often results in self-harm and suicidal behaviors.
Dr. Ventura graduated from Fordham University with her doctorate in counseling psychology and received her master’s degree and additional specialist’s degrees from the University of Florida.
Dr. Ventura’s grant and research interests are in understanding the feasibility and implementation of mindfulness-based interventions within the elementary school setting. Specialized mind-body focus has been on mindfulness coaching with teachers who work with students classified with emotional behavioral disorder.
Dr. Ventura has a passion for increasing DBT-informed care within the community to better serve people who are struggling with pervasive emotions dysregulation. As such, she provides DBT trainings and supervision to individual clinicians in Northeast Florida, and also partners with larger state agencies who serve many clinicians. Her trainings are clinician/agency specific and focus on topics, such as how to evaluate suicide and self-harm, and how to provide specific DBT interventions (e.g., mindfulness, validation, distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills).
Dr. Ventura currently serves as the treasurer for the Northeast chapter of the Florida Psychological Association. Her previous chapter roles were president for two years, board representative for two years, membership chair for two years and general member since 2014.