PORTLAND, ME – After over 25 years of evaluating and treating several thousand children for abuse concerns, Lawrence R. Ricci, MD, announces his retirement as Child Abuse Pediatrician at the Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families (formerly the Spurwink Child Abuse Program) on July 31, 2020.
Dr. Ricci is dual residency trained and successfully completed his boards in Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine, and Child Abuse Pediatrics. Dr. Ricci is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Tufts Maine Medical Center College of Medicine, and is a board certified Child Abuse Pediatrician specializing in the evaluation and treatment of abused children at the Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families in Portland, Maine. He started this program in 1986, originally in Waterville, Maine, then in 1994 in Portland, Maine.
“We are honored and privileged to have had the care and expertise that Dr. Ricci has offered to our community for so many years,” said Eric Meyer, President and CEO of Spurwink. “He has helped define this crucial program in Maine and has been a true advocate for children and families for decades.”
Dr. Ricci has served on several state and national child abuse committees including former Chair of the Maine Child Death/Serious Injury Review Panel and former Chair of the Section on Child Abuse of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is a former president of the Ray Helfer Society, an international society of several hundred physicians specializing in the care of abused children.
Dr. Ricci has developed numerous child abuse workshops throughout Maine and around the country, which have been presented to social workers, mental health professionals, legal professionals, and medical professionals. He has published approximately 25 articles and book chapters in the field of child abuse evaluation and treatment, and has expertise in photo documentation and lectures, regularly consulting on camera systems and photographic techniques. He recently published “What Happened in the Woodshed: The Secret Lives of Battered Children and a New Profession Protecting Them,” a book about the field of child abuse pediatrics and about his own clinical experiences in Maine over the past 30 years.
He is the recipient of numerous local and national awards including Outstanding Service to Maltreated Children from the Section on Child Abuse of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Outstanding Contribution to the field of Child Abuse Pediatrics from the Ray Helfer Society.
Co-leadership of the Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families will transition to Amanda Brownell, MD, who joined the Center in 2018 as a Child Abuse Pediatrician, and Joyce Wientzen, LCSW, who is currently the Program Director for the Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families.
About Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families
The Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families was originally developed in 1994 in response to the need for expert diagnostic services for children who may have been abused. The Center now serves children and adults throughout Maine with child abuse diagnostic clinics in South Portland, Bangor, Lewiston, and Augusta. It also provides a multidisciplinary failure to thrive clinic and medical and psychological evaluations for children newly into foster care.
About Spurwink
Spurwink is a nationally accredited nonprofit organization that provides a broad range of mental health, education, and residential services for children, adolescents, adults, and families. Spurwink offers specialized programs throughout Maine with a commitment to caring relationships and treatment expertise, grounded in evidence-based, best and promising practices. For more information, visit www.spurwink.org, or call 207.871.1200.
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Press Contact:
Sandy Boyce | sboyce@spurwink.org | 207.272.7758