DBT40 Honoree: Wendell Covell

Title: Clinical Director, Fellowship Program

Wendell Covell | DBT PHOTO BY LUIGI CIUFFETELLI

Workplace: JFS Delaware

Age: 36

When it comes to training clinicians to work with some of the most vulnerable communities in the state, Jewish Family Services (JFS) of Delaware’s Wendell Covell is motivated to provide the highest quality of care.

As the clinical director of JFS Delaware’s $3.5 million mental health fellowship program, Covell oversees a large cohort of pre-licensed professionals, helping them move toward licensure and successful careers. Through his position, he’s also created over a dozen impactful community partnerships, dozens of community-based therapy groups and provided therapy and support to more than 500 people in the last year.

Prior to joining JFS Delaware, Covell was the director of family services at Family Promise. He moved to Delaware in 2020 after spending most of his life in central New York..

Covell is motivated to provide the highest quality of care by remembering where he has been and the people who changed his life .

Since graduating from college, he has moved from direct work as a licensed clinical social worker to overseeing the extensive program at JFS. He also holds a position as an international family therapy trainer and consultant. He has previously spent years volunteering as a mentor in the Big Brother Big Sister program, as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army and as a volunteer with the Syracuse Christmas Bureau providing holiday presents and meals for thousands of families in need. 

He is a husband and father of two who also volunteers as an assistant coach for the Wilmington Nighthawks youth hockey team and actively donates to local causes, including through the DoMore24 campaign.