Sarah Carpenter, LICSW

About Sarah

Sarah Carpenter is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) with more than 25 years of experience developing, directing, and implementing mental health and educational programs using a strengths-based approach. At Insight Recovery, Sarah served as Clinical Director of Mental Health from June 2025 to May 2026 before stepping into her current role as Clinical Supervisor in May 2026, where she supports clinical operations and the day-to-day work of the care team.

Sarah currently serves as Clinical Director at Comprehensive Health Services, where she oversees the day-to-day provision of clinical services across three sites of a nationally accredited agency. She has been instrumental in developing a strategic growth initiative and sustainable business model for the organization, and launched an intern training program alongside best practices for supervising new and experienced clinicians.

Prior to that, Sarah spent nine years as Lead Clinician at Clearway School in West Newton, Massachusetts, where she provided staff supervision, training, and consultation, served as a liaison between staff and administration, and sat on the school's admissions team — alongside providing direct mental health counseling, psychoeducation, and case management for special education students in grades 7 through 12.

Earlier in her career, Sarah directed the Student Assistance Program for St Helena Unified School District in California, co-authoring a federal grant that moved the program from provisional to sustainable funding and grew it to serve 400 students in grades 6 through 12 across a 50-mile radius. During this time, she also chaired the district's School Attendance Review Board, connecting students at risk of dropping out with legal, mental health, and family support services. She previously supervised school-based counseling staff at 14 school sites for Napa County Schools through the Wolfe Center Drug Treatment Center, and founded and directed a perinatal day treatment program for substance-abusing women at West Oakland Health Center, coordinating reunification plans with Child Protective Services and supervising an MSW intern program with San Francisco State and San Jose State.

Sarah's clinical foundation includes work as a Per Diem Clinician at McLean Hospital, an Adjustment Counselor at Danvers High School (where she provided grief and trauma support following a school tragedy), a Psychiatric Social Worker at Kaiser Chemical Dependency Services, and a private practice psychotherapist focused on adolescents and families affected by substance abuse. She holds a Master of Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley, completed a Pupil Personnel Services credential at UC Berkeley, and completed a clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School's Center for Addiction Studies.