Stephen Colella, Director

Stephen Colella, M.A., CRC, has over twenty-five years of experience as a vocational rehabilitation counselor.  Mr. Colella has worked in both public and private sector arenas, as a workers’ compensation case management, rehabilitation counselor, expert vocational witness, and most recently as an Appeals Reviewer for the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  He also has worked as a weekend Chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA.

Mr. Colella, always an advocate for those needing his professional services, developed the West Warwick Job Club in 2009, to provide vocational support, job development, and structured group and individual vocational counseling to unemployed and underemployed Rhode Island residents.  This “grass roots” program has attracted local and national attention, and has been featured in the Providence Journal, The Fiscal Times, and on local radio stations. Recently, Mr. Colella was invited to attend and speak about the West Warwick Job Club at a conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Community and Faith-Based Partnership and at the Faith Advocates for Jobs National Convention.

Mr. Colella has dual graduate degrees in Divinity and Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Toronto, and is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor and a Licensed Vocational Expert for the Social Security Administration.