Dr. Alison Gardner is a licensed clinical child psychologist who has been practicing since 2003. She specializes in treating preschool and school-aged children who are struggling with anxiety and other emotional and behavioral regulation difficulties. She also supports children and families through life stresses from divorce and other losses to school and social challenges.

She takes an integrative approach to her work with children and families. In so doing, she works strategically with children, parents, and schools in order to leverage multiple pathways for teaching new skills and fostering children’s emotional well-being and secure relationships with the important adults around them.

Dr. Gardner opened Nurture Child and Family together with her husband, Mark Gardner, LCSW, in McLean, VA in 2015.  Previously, she worked for 12 years with Family Compass, a private group psychotherapy practice in Reston, VA. She was also an Assistant Clinical Professor of Clinical Psychology at George Washington University from 2012 until 2016.

Dr. Gardner grew up in Pennsylvania and received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology (a university based program jointly sponsored by Eastern Virginia Medical School, The College of William and Mary, Old Dominion University, and Norfolk State University) in 2002 after completing her internship with the Fairfax County Community Services Board (The Woodburn Center). Dr. Gardner trained with and worked for Fairfax County’s Infancy and Early Childhood Program before joining Family Compass in 2004.    She has completed post graduate seminars in early childhood with the Washington School of Psychiatry, the Baltimore Washington Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, the Selective Mutism Group (Childhood Anxiety Network), and in various topics related to ADHD, mood disorders, behavioral challenges, mindfulness practice, and sand tray work.