Vice Chair of Psychological Services Position Announcement

Vice Chair of Psychological Services

Dr. John Q. Young, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and Zucker Hillside Hospital (ZHH) and SVP for Behavioral Health at Northwell, and Dr. Manish Sapra, Executive Director for the Behavioral Health Service Line, with the support of Northwell Executive Leadership, invites applications and nominations for the newly established position of Vice Chair of Psychological Services. This inaugural leadership role reflects Northwell Health's bold commitment to elevating psychotherapy as a cornerstone of mental health treatment. It comes at a moment of both challenge and opportunity for the field, as the need for timely, meaningful, and evidence-based psychotherapy grows more urgent. Northwell aims to create a system-wide model that is innovative, accessible, effective, equitable, sustainable, and growable. The incoming Vice Chair will shape and operationalize this vision, advancing high-quality psychological care grounded in the science of therapeutic common factors and the depth of specialized, empirically supported treatments.

Job Description

• Serve as the clinical and strategic leader for psychotherapy and psychological services at the combined Department of Psychiatry (Zucker Hillside Hospital, LIJMC, CCMC, and NSUH) with system-wide responsibility for strategy, oversight, mentorship, faculty development, and scholarship.
• Influence the system-wide strategy for the design, clinical integrity, quality, sustainability, growth, and evaluation of psychological care at Northwell.
• Lead the workforce pipeline strategy to increase accessibility to high-quality psychotherapy for the communities Northwell serves.
• Center the common therapeutic factors (e.g., alliance, empathy, emotional safety, collaboration) as the foundation of clinical care.
• Integrate treatments such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and other specialty modalities (e.g., exposure therapy, CBT, EMDR) into Northwell's psychotherapy treatment.
• Ensure baseline quality of psychotherapy provided while empowering innovation and specialization across settings: inpatient, outpatient, community-based, and digital.
• Collaborate with psychology directors across medical and psychiatric service lines to support mentoring, clinical consultation, quality assurance, and disseminating high-quality psychological interventions throughout the enterprise.
• Develop resource mapping of licensed providers of psychotherapy services to improve optimal distribution of psychotherapy resources across Northwell.
• Help shape the psychotherapy training vision for psychologists, psychiatrists, master's-level therapists, unlicensed interns, and associates.
• Adopt system-wide curricula in common factors and evidence-based practices (EBPs), expand training to non-licensed staff, and build training pipelines to reinforce a resilient workforce.
• Support and facilitate research and scholarship related to clinical and educational innovations in the department.

Additional Responsibilities

• Serve as the visible and trusted champion of psychotherapy services across the health system and beyond.
• Advance access to care through new care delivery models and digital platforms.
• Reduce silos between disciplines and regions through standardized training, clinical foundations, and outcome metrics.
• Build a culture of continuous quality improvement through measurement-based care and shared dashboards.
• Collaborate with Northwell leadership on strategic planning, resource allocation, and workforce development.

Requirements

• PhD, PsyD, or EdD in one of the following psychology programs: Clinical, Clinical-Health, Clinical-School, Clinical-Community, Counseling Psychology or a field regarded by the American Psychological Association as health services psychology.
• Currently or eligible licensed provider in the State of New York.
• Minimum of ten (10) years of progressive senior management experience in Behavioral Health at the institutional or system level.
• Experience in successfully leading system, organization or department transformation.
• Subject matter expertise and progressive management experience in clinical psychotherapy and assessment services.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, including the ability to build trust, navigate complex relationships, and communicate with empathy and professionalism across diverse settings, groups, and positions.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills required.
• Demonstrates a sound knowledge of specialty and related fields.
• Maintains standards of professional ethics and clinical competency.

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be determined based on various factors, including but not limited to scope of role, level of experience, education, specialty/subspecialty, credentials, academic accomplishments, clinical productivity, quality metrics, patient experience, site/location internal equity, budget, and subject to Fair Market Value evaluation. The base compensation range listed is a good faith determination of potential base compensation at the time of this job advertisement and may be modified in the future.