Grant Charles is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at UBC and Affiliated Associate Professor in the Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine at BC Children’s Hospital. He is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences in the College of Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba and an Associate Adjunct Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. He is also a member of the Prato International Research Collaborative on Children of Parents with Mental Illness. His current research focus is on young carers, the ethics of international service learning and the development of practice and legislative response regarding child sexual abuse images on-line.
Dr. Edward Kruk is Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, specializing in child and family policy. As a child and family social worker in Canada and the U.K., he has practiced in the fields of welfare rights, child protection, school social work, hospital social work, and family services. He is currently teaching and practicing in the areas of family mediation and addiction. He the author of many books including The Equal Parent Presumption: Social Justice in the Legal Determination of Parenting After Divorce; Divorced Fathers: Children’s Needs and Parental Responsibilities; Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Social Work and the Human Services; and Divorce and Disengagement. He is President of the International Council on Shared Parenting.
Maria LeRose is Program Director for the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. She is an award-winning television producer and interviewer, and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. She received her Masters of Education from the University of British Columbia in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and Special Education – with an emphasis on social and emotional development. Before embarking on a career in Journalism, Maria coordinated the first Child Abuse Prevention Program in BC, and worked in a variety of Social Service jobs including Youth and Child Care Worker, and Mental Health Worker. She has moderated panels featuring the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Sir Ken Robinson and other luminaries.
Charles Ungerleider, a sociologist whose research has addressed a wide range of topics from assessment to xenophobia, is Director of Research and Managing Partner of Directions Evidence and Policy Research Group, LLP. Conversant with a broad range of research methods, Ungerleider has produced systematic reviews of literature, policy analyses, analyses using large and small data sets, evaluation reports, as well as government briefing documents and cabinet submissions. Ungerleider has broad knowledge of government and public education systems in Canada from his research, from his direct experience as a researcher, and from serving as a Deputy Minister of Education in British Columbia.
Ardith (Walpetko We’dalks) Walkem is a member of the Nlaka’pamux nation which stretches from the Interior of BC into Washington state. She has a Master of Laws from UBC (with a research focus on Indigenous laws and oral traditions). Ardith has practiced extensively with different Indigenous communities, and in assisting Indigenous communities to assert their Aboriginal Title and Rights and Treaty Rights, with a focus on assisting Indigenous communities to articulate their own laws and legal systems. She has worked as Parents Counsel on CFCSA cases, and as counsel for Indigenous nations in matters involving their child members, and has helped to design systems based on Indigenous laws for children and families. Most recently, she wrote Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook (2015, published by the ShchEma-meet.tkt project) and has worked with Indigenous communities to recover and implement their own laws in the area of Indigenous children and families.
Head of the Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine of the Department of Paediatrics of BC Children’s Hospital and UBC
Dr. Curren Warf is a Clinical Professor of Paediatrics and Head of the Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine (DAHM) of the Department of Paediatrics at BC Children’s Hospital and the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine. He graduated medical school from the Drew/UCLA School of Medicine, completed paediatric residency and adolescent medicine Fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). Prior to relocating to Vancouver in 2009, at CHLA Dr. Warf was the medical director of the High Risk Youth Program focusing on homeless and runaway youth in Los Angeles communities. He has a long standing involvement in the care of adolescents, working collaboratively with community agencies, and has conducted research and published on vulnerable adolescents, systematic discrimination against minority youth in American urban centers, violence and adolescents, and academic text chapters.