Our Team
Bianca Vargas-Ocasio, LSW
Social worker
Bianca Vargas-Ocasio is a bilingual Social Worker and Mental Health Consultant for Lurie Children’s Center for Childhood Resilience (CCR). With over 5 years of experience in school and community settings, her work has included clinical services, case management and delivery of evidence-based group interventions to children and adolescents. Ms. Vargas-Ocasio provides training and supported implementation for the group intervention Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups (STRONG). She works collaboratively with schools and community agencies by providing consultation, training and coaching on establishing best practice systems and structures to create and maintain healing-centered child and youth serving classrooms and organizations. She is an experienced trainer and provides reflective consultation around establishing trauma-responsive and culturally-attuned environments and practices. Ms. Vargas-Ocasio works on several CCR projects including the Behavioral Health Team model, the Trauma-Responsive Schools Designation (TRS-D) pilot project and training pre-professional teachers in partnership with the Golden Apple Foundation.
Ms. Vargas-Ocasio is co-author of the Stress and Coping Toolkit, a 5-module plug and play toolkit for Chicago Public Schools teachers.
She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Social Work degree with a specialty in Direct Services from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico.