Presenter: Delphine Collin-Vezina
Presenter Bio: Dr. Delphine Collin-Vézina is the Director of the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor at the McGill School of Social Work and an Associate Member in the Department of Pediatrics. She holds both the Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare and the Nicolas Steinmetz and Gilles Julien Chair in Social Pediatrics in Community. With extensive funding from provincial and federal granting bodies, her research focuses on services to vulnerable children across three themes: child protection responses to sexual abuse; trauma-informed practices in out-of-home care; and social return on investments for community-based services. Dr. Collin-Vézina has published more than 60 articles in many renowned academic journals such as Child Abuse & Neglect and Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma. Furthermore, she has presented about 70 conference papers and she has been invited over 20 times as a keynote speaker, in influential scientific and community venues. She sits on the boards of many influential institutions, such as the Child Welfare League of Canada and the Child Protection Center of the Gregorian Pontifical University. Her influence is reflected by her participation in expert consultations organized by different ministries as well as through the citation of her work in policy and child welfare reports. Since 2013, Dr. Collin-Vézina has trained over 2,000 professionals from various disciplines in trauma-informed practices.

Presenter: Denise Brend, MSW, PhD
Presenter Bio: Denise Brend is a postdoctoral fellow at the Université de Sherbrooke working on the study Implantation et évaluation modèle Attachement, Régulation et Compétences auprès d'enfants de 6 à12 ans. She is co-supervised by Canada Research Chairs: Dr. Nadine Lanctôt and Dr. Delphine Collin- Vézina (McGill University). Her doctoral research explored how social workers in the field of intimate partner violence experience workplace social support, advancing mentalization and epistemic trust as useful theoretical frameworks for future inquiry and practice. Recipient of an FQRSC doctoral scholarship, in 2015 she was selected as a Research Fellow in the Research Training Programme of the International Psychoanalytical Association (London, United Kingdom). She has been a course and field instructor in the McGill School of Social Work. Currently, she is a permanent faculty member at Cegep Dawson College where she has been a member and chairperson of specialized groups on clinical practice, anti-oppressive program revision, and completed the New School teacher trainee program. Denise has 13 years of experience as a psychotherapist, a social worker in mental health, a clinical supervisor, and clinical trainer. She specializes in complex and work-related trauma. She is also the co-chair of the McGill Qualitative Health Research Group, Special Interest Group: Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Workgroup.

Presenter: Irene Beeman, MSW
Presenter Bio: Irene Beeman, BA Sociology, MSW, is a research coordinator at the Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF). She has coordinated research projects regarding cross-cultural perspectives on (in)adequate child care and supervision and regarding childhood literacy. She currently coordinates a project to document the implementation and evaluate the impact of the trauma-informed model Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools (HEARTS) in Montreal elementary schools, as well as the annual Complex Trauma Symposium and the Trans Youth and Families journal watch at the CRCF. Irene has several years of practice experience from community organizations in the U.S. and Canada conducting intervention and counselling with trauma-impacted individuals and groups including precarious-status immigrants and women experiencing conjugal violence, and is a trained birth doula and gynecological teaching associate.