Allison Pinto

Dr. Allison Pinto is a licensed clinical child psychologist with a specialization in infant mental health and Co-Executive Director of the Sarasota Community Studio.  After earning a Ph.D. at UCLA, she served as a clinical program director and training director in a Los Angeles community mental health center. Upon moving to Tampa she joined the faculty of the Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida, providing consultation to communities across the country seeking to develop Systems of Care for children’s mental health.  Dr. Pinto also worked at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, facilitating community change efforts throughout the county.   She served as Principal Investigator of the "Communiplexity” Initiative, a collaborative established to develop complexity-informed resources for community sustainability.  After moving to Sarasota she established Banyan Sprout, Inc., a private practice of child psychology and community well-being focused on her home neighborhood of Central-Cocoanut – a precursor to the Sarasota Community Studio.  Through Banyan Sprout, she was contracted to design and direct the Community Data and Neighborhoods Initiatives at SCOPE, a non-profit community engagement organization.  This led to the formation of the Community Data Collaborative of Sarasota County, a network of over 50 individuals from a diversity of neighborhoods and institutions developing resident-centric, neighborhood-scale community data resources to inform local community change efforts.  Dr. Pinto has served on the Training Task Force of ZERO TO THREE: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, and on the APA Presidential Task Force on Psychological Needs of U.S Military Service Members and Their Families.  She has presented at a variety of national conferences on children’s mental health, community change and complexity science.