Pam Bolarinho , LICSW

Pam Bolarinho, LICSW (Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker), is a full-time Vice President of Acute Care Services with 20 years of experience in social work and behavioral health leadership. She began her career as a social worker with the Healthy Families Program and later served with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families before completing a Master of Social Work at Bridgewater State University, where she represented her MSW cohort as class representative.

Her professional background spans direct clinical roles and administrative leadership. In addition to serving as the ESP Director for three years, she has worked as Clinical Director at an inpatient psychiatric facility and as Social Work Manager at an acute medical hospital for over seven years. She has partnered with community organizations such as the Suicide Prevention Coalition, Help & Hope Southcoast, Labor & Human Trafficking initiatives, and the Opioid Taskforce to expand community-based care.

A Portuguese American who immigrated to the United States at age five, Pam has focused her career on supporting vulnerable populations and developing community responses to behavioral health needs. She helped launch a co-response program with a local police department nearly three years ago that has brought over 400 patients into community-based care and kept more than 65% of those individuals at home rather than in an emergency room. Pam practices from a patient-centered, strength-based perspective and has extensive experience working with trauma, end-of-life care, foster care and adoption, reactive attachment disorder, older adults, addiction, and chronic mental health concerns.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Care

Pam draws on Client-Centered Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Motivational Interviewing to guide online work. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes respect for each person’s perspective and helps clients explore their feelings and values in a nonjudgmental way - it is helpful for building self-understanding and trust. CBT focuses on how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors interact and offers practical strategies to address anxiety, depression, and stress-related concerns. Motivational Interviewing uses collaborative, goal-oriented conversations to strengthen a person’s own motivation for change and can be especially useful for substance use, behavior change, and ambivalence about treatment.

Finding the right therapeutic approach is part of the process. Pam works collaboratively with clients and with other licensed professionals and therapists as needed to identify which methods best match each person’s needs, goals, and preferences, and she adjusts the plan over time based on progress and feedback.

Online therapy with Pam makes it possible to receive care through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These options provide flexibility for scheduling around work, family, or caregiving responsibilities and increase access for people who benefit from remote sessions while still receiving evidence-informed therapeutic support.