Jessica Ricardo, M.S.W. '15, LICSW

Jessica Ricardo, LICSW, was raised in Rhode Island and currently lives and works in Providence. She is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and identifies as both Black and Afro-Latina. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College in sociology and human rights studies, after which she took a bit of a zig-zagging path to social work. That path began in the woods where she taught outdoor education. Ricardo moved on to providing in-home services to children with varying developmental disabilities, and then on to working as an advocate and transitional housing coordinator at a local domestic violence agency.

Since graduating from Smith’s M.S.W. program in 2015, Ricardo worked with youth in an acute care residential setting as well as in a medical hospital focusing on end of life work. Ricardo now works in her own private practice where she focuses on trauma work, specifically racial trauma work, with primarily BIPOC and LGBTQ+ identified clients in both English and Spanish. Ricardo has a strong interest in exploring both the ongoing need for, and the history of, oppressed communities to heal and liberate themselves from within.