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Dr. Christiana Bratiotis

Is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she teaches social work practice classes across the bachelor’s and master’s programs and supervises social work doctoral students. She serves as Faculty Chair of the MSW program and currently leads a comprehensive curriculum renewal process. She pioneered work in the formation and operation of multi-disciplinary community hoarding task forces, which is highlighted in her book titled, “The Hoarding Handbook: A Guide for Human Service Professionals” published by Oxford University Press. She is the leading global authority on implementing community-based interventions for hoarding and her current research interests center on hoarding treatment and intervention efforts in the context of affordable housing and community-based organizations.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Bratiotis has also taught courses in social welfare, mental health policy and social analysis. In addition to her scholarly work, she supervises students who provide clinical treatment and she offers national and international consultation on hoarding behaviour to families and communities.

In 2017 Christiana took advantage of an opportunity to relocate to Vancouver and became an affiliated faculty with the UBC Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding where she conducts cross-disciplinary research and co-supervises clinical psychology students.

She has given more than 200 invited community lectures, keynote addresses, agency clinical trainings and academic presentations around the world. In 2011, Christiana developed the HOMES Multi-disciplinary Hoarding Risk Assessment which has been translated into six languages and is a tool used by communities to assess risk and guide hoarding interventions.

Dr. Bratiotis earned her Bachelor of Arts in Social Psychology and Masters of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Nevada, Reno. She completed a one year post-MSW fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine, Child Study Center. Christiana served as executive director for two non-profit organizations and has more than 23 years of experience working in and with communities to build capacity and address issues of diversity and social justice.

Her work has been highlighted by media outlets including the Canadian Press, The Vancouver Sun, the New York Times, Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune.

In 2014, Christiana received the Tenancy Assistance Program Individual Award from Boston’s MassHousing and in 2010, she was recognized with an Excellence in Teaching Award by Boston University. She consistently achieves exceptionally high teaching evaluations and in her words, “is honoured to contribute to the development of emerging social work practitioners and behavioural health interventionists.”

Dr. Gail Steketee

Is a professor and Dean Emerita Boston University School of Social Work Boston, Massachusetts, United States Dr Gail Steketee is Professor Emerita and the former Dean of the Boston University School of Social Work. Her research and teaching has concentrated on cognitive and behavioral treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder and its spectrum disorders, especially hoarding disorder and body dysmorphic disorder. She is a recipient of several NIMH grants and a highly cited researcher with an H index of 93. Her scientific publications focus on the assessment and treatment of hoarding disorders in adulthood, including excessive acquiring, difficulty discarding, and clutter, as well as community interventions and family aspects of hoarding behaviors. Dr Steketee has published over 250 articles and chapters and authored 16 books on OCD and hoarding. She is an elected Fellow and past Vice-President of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, past President of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Her career awards include Outstanding Career Achievement from the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF), Career Award from the San Francisco Mental Health Association, and Service Award from the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy (ABCT) where she served as president in 2017. Her latest book Hoarding: What Everyone Needs to Know is a collaboration with Dr Christiana Bratiotis, an expert on community interventions for hoarding.

Dr. Lori Haskell

Is a clinical psychologist who splits her time between delivering professional training and educational presentations across Canada and her clinical private practice.  She is a nationally recognized expert on trauma and abuse, and on trauma informed approaches to mental health service delivery and on legal responses. Dr. Haskell has worked on collaborative projects addressing the impact of trauma on Indigenous peoples, trauma and the service challenges for developmentally disabled people, complex trauma and homelessness, and restorative justice and gendered violence.

She has provided expert evidence in a number of legal proceedings, including criminal trials and gave expert testimony at the Coroner’s Inquest of the domestic homicide of Sunny Park, her son and parents, in British Columbia.  She has a status appointment as an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Toronto and is an academic research associate with the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children, at Western University. She regularly delivers professional trainings at conferences for Crown Attorneys and other lawyers, to service providers, mental health professionals, professional colleges and to police forces across Canada, on the need for trauma informed criminal justice system responses and enhanced understandings of the neurobiology of trauma.

Her recent keynote addresses have included the Maddison Chair Trust Lecture in Northern Justice, in 2018 in the Yukon on “Disrupted Attachment: The Effects of abuse and harm on Indigenous People,” and a 2018 Keynote address to the National Symposium on Sexual Assault Cases in the Criminal Court: The Latest Developments in Law, Science and Practice. (April 21, 2018) on “the Neurobiology of Sexual Assault.”

Dr. Haskell has also published a book (First Stage Trauma Treatment: A Guide for Therapists Working with Women (Toronto:  CAMH, University of Toronto, 2003) and numerous articles on issues of trauma and abuse, including co-authoring a recent report for Justice Canada, “The Impact of Trauma on Adult Sexual Assault Victims:  What the Criminal justice system needs to know” (2019).