Monica McGoldrick, MSW, Ph.D. (h.c.), is the Director of the Multicultural Family Institute, and she is on the Clinical Faculty of the Psychiatry Department at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.  She has an international reputation as a trainer and author.  Her books include Ethnicity and Family Therapy (3rd ed, 2005), The Expanding Family Life Cycle (5th ed, 2016), Genograms (3rd ed, 2008), Living Beyond Loss (2nd ed, 2004), Re-Visioning Family Therapy: Race, Culture and Gender in Clinical Practice (3rd ed, In press), Women in Families (1991), and The Genogram Journey: Reconnecting with Your Family (2nd ed of You Can Go Home Again, 2011).  Her newest book the Genogram Casebook was published by W.W. Norton in 2016.  She is also the author of 5 teaching videos available through www.psychotherapy.net.

Transforming Life Narratives:  Context, Connection, Genograms, Legacies and Having a Sense of Home.  This presentation will be abut the key dimensions for assessing human problems and evolving healing solutions.  Genograms are the core mapping tool of this workshop.  A venogram is a map of who you belong to. This presentation will focus on viewing each person in the context of his other cultural background, social class, gender and sexual orientation, family history, life cycle trajectory, and multiple identities in terms of interests, affiliations, and values.

Edward A. Connors, Ph.D., C.Psych., (Wabeenungbenasai Kabeetwaatung, Wolf Clan), is a Psychologist registered in Ontario.  He is of Mohawk and Irish ancestry and is a band member of Kahnawake Mohawk Territory.  He has worked with First Nations communities across Canada since 1982, in both urban and rural centres. Dr. Connors served as a board member and vice president of the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention between 1990-98.   He has worked as Clinical Director of an infant mental health centre in Regina and a suicide prevention program for First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario.   While developing the latter, Dr. Connors apprenticed with Elders in traditional First Nations approaches to healing. His current practice incorporates traditional healing knowledge while also employing his training as a Psychologist. He and his wife, Donna, manage a health planning firm which provides health consultation and psychological services to First Nations communities throughout the Georgian Bay region. He also serves as an elder/advisor for Enaahtig Learning and Healing Lodge and the Native Mental Health Association of Canada.  Dr. Connors is a committee member with the Mental Health Commission of Canada and a board member of the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, Ontario.

Social Justice and The Great Law of Peace.  Rudolf Dreikurs believe that the real challenge facing the human race is to establish equality at all levels of human activity and that this alone may be the determining factor of our continued existence.  Several centuries before Dreikurs proposed this, the Iroquois Confederacy formed one of the longest lasting known experiences of peaceful relationships between five previous warring societies  These peaceful relations were based upon a code of ethics referred to as the Great Law of Peace.  This code reinforced principles of equality at all levels of human activity.  Today, efforts to re-establish healthy, peaceful relationships within Iroquois communities are attempting to reactivate this knowledge.  This workshop will share how these efforts to rebuild healthy communities and relationships parallel insights that Dreikurs proposed in his application of Adlerian psychology.

Margaret Trudeau is a Canadian icon, celebrated both for her role in the public eye and as a respected mental-health issues advocate. From becoming a prime minister’s wife at a young age, to the loss of both her son and her former husband, to living with bi-polar disorder. Margaret tirelessly shares her personal stories to remind others of the importance of nurturing the body, mind, and spirit.  Margaret is the author of four books, including her bestselling title, Changing My Mind, which charts her life’s ups and downs, and her latest title, The Time of Your Life, which offers women an inspirational and practical approach to creating a healthy, happy, secure and satisfying future.  Margaret sits on the Executive Advisory Board of the University of British Columbia Mental Health Institute as a community advocate, and she is the former Honorary President of WaterAid, a charitable Canadian non-governmental agency that is dedicated to helping poor communities in developing countries build sustainable water-supply and sanitation services. She is also the proud mother to Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

Changing My Mind.  Margaret brings her formidable life story to the stage in her quest to help others, sharing her message of resilience with the goal of helping to inspire others and to erase the stigma surrounding mental health issues.  Margaret shares her personal stories to remind others of the importance of nurturing body, mind, and spirit.