A licensed clinical social worker who for four years has overseen communications for a world-renowned psychiatric hospital in the town will take the reins next month at one of New Canaan’s foremost human services organizations.
Ellen Brezovsky. Contributed
Ellen Brezovsky will start June 11 as executive director of New Canaan Cares, according to the nonprofit organization’s incoming Board of Directors chair, Sara Schubert.
Brezovsky, most recently director of community relations at Silver Hill Hospital, brings wide knowledge of New Canaan families to the role, as well as qualities of creativity and collaboration, said Schubert, who also led New Canaan Cares’s search committee.
“She has been working with 13 different communities, so her personal outreach and connections to programming and new speakers is going to be wonderful for us,” Schubert told NewCanaanite.com.
Brezovsky said she was “very excited about the prospect of leading up Cares” and “to do justice” to what longtime director Meg Domino has helped build in some 17 years at the helm.
“I think my skill set and passion, especially for prevention education and youth leadership, will really fit well with Cares,” Brezovsky said. “So I’m really looking forward to the challenge to help the community.”
Selected from among 75 candidates through a search process that started in January and included input from New Canaan Public Schools and local nonprofit organizations, Brezovsky is expected to “provide the strong leadership and vision New Canaan Cares needs to move into the future,” Schubert said in an email to the Board earlier this month, announcing the selection.
A Stamford resident, Brezovsky earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the College of the Holy Cross and a master’s degree in social from Columbia University. Prior to her job at Silver Hill, she worked for 20 years at the City of Stamford’s HIV Prevention Program.
“Ellen offers an excellent balance of clinical, program development and community outreach experience. The Search Committee was impressed with how poised, calm and confident she was in her interviews,” said Schubert, who led that committee.
Brezovsky’s references described her as organized and even keeled, Schubert said.
She “has big shoes to fill” in succeeding Domino, who has been “phenomenal,” Schubert said.
“We will continue to do what we do well and meet the needs that New Canaan has come to rely on for New Canaan Cares,” she said. “People look to us for direction and family advice and day-to-day things for children—‘It takes a village,’ that is what Cares has always been. I am excited because Ellen is so passionate about it.”