Risking Connection® Facilitators
Laurie Pearlman, Ph.D., a co-author of the original RC model and member of the RC Clinical Leadership Team, has devoted her professional life to promoting the understanding of traumatic stress, its amelioration, and its impact on survivors and those who work with survivors. She has pursued these goals through research, psychotherapy, theory-building, professional training and consultations (including clinical and research supervision and organizational consultations), court evaluations, and community and crisis intervention work, at the national and international levels.
Dr. Pearlman co-founded the Traumatic Stress Institute in 1986 and the Trauma Research, Education, and Training Institute (TREATI) in 1996. She has published numerous articles, chapters, and books on psychological trauma and on the deleterious impact of working with survivors known as vicarious traumatization, a term coined in the 1990 article she co-authored on the topic. In recent years, Dr. Pearlman's goal has been to apply the clinical and scientific knowledge now available about traumatic stress to large groups of people. Her work with Professor Ervin Staub in Rwanda since 1999, as well as her co-authorship of Risking Connection®, represent efforts to make sophisticated information about traumatic stress available to people without the on-going assistance of highly trained professionals.
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Kay Saakvitne, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, a co-author of the original RC model, and one of the RC Clinical Leadership Team, is adjunct faculty at the Smith School of Social Work and maintains a private practice. For over 13 years she was the Clinical Director at Trauma, Research, Education and Training Institute (TREATI), where she taught Risking Connection extensively. Along with Laurie Pearlman and others, she is the author of Trauma and the Therapist: Countertransference and Vicarious Traumatization in Psychotherapy with Incest Survivors (1995), Transforming the Pain: A Workbook on Vicarious Traumatization (1996), and Risking Connection® (2001).
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Steve Brown, Psy.D., is the Director of the Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers, Coordinator of the Risking Connection® Training Program for the Trauma, Research, Education and Training Institute (TREATI), and a Senior Risking Connection trainer. He specializes in work with at-risk youth, especially children and teens with sexual behavior problems. He is also a sexuality educator/trainer and author of Streetwise to Sex-Wise: Sexuality Education for High Risk Youth, a sexuality education curriculum used nationally by agencies and schools serving high-risk youth. He is the immediate past Chair of the Board of Directors of Stop It Now!, a ground-breaking national sexual abuse prevention organization whose unique programs challenge adults, not children, to take responsibility for preventing child sexual abuse.
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Jackson Day, M.Div., M.P.H., candidate for doctorate in ministry, began his career as a chaplain with the Fourth Infantry Division, U.S. Army, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He has served as executive director of the National Conference of Viet Nam Veteran Ministers and as a leader of its spiritual healing retreats for combat veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their wives. Jack is a consultant for health care and mental illness issues with the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church. He retired as pastor of Grace Methodist Church in Upperco, MD, in June 2008. He is a co-author of Risking Connection® in Faith Communities: A Training Curriculum for Faith Leaders Supporting Trauma Survivors (2006).
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Teresa McGee, M.A., spent over 22 years working with the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, an international charity with personnel in 27 countries, where she oversaw management of health care, ongoing education, planning and crisis management for over 600 international workers. As a member of the senior management team she researched and developed policy and presented internationally on trauma, facilitation and mediation in conflict situations. She is now a consultant and trainer. She is the author of five books, including Transforming Trauma: A Path Toward Wholeness (2005).
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Elizabeth Power, M.Ed., has Sidran’s educational partner in developing the Risking Connection replication materials and member of the RC Leadership Team, has devoted her professional life to promoting the use of adult learning in education about trauma and dissociation with a focus on reducing the time, trauma, and cost of healing for all involved. She supported the development of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute in Relational Psychology at the Stone Center for Women at Wellesley and has completed numerous courses at the JBMTI. She actively works in theory-building, evidence-informed training for survivors of traumatic experience and those who work with them, provides consultation to clinicians and organizations and also works in program development and implementation.
Ms. Power founded EPower & Associates, Inc. in 1982 as a niche training firm providing services across a broad spectrum of sectors. She has published numerous articles, chapters, and books on nonprofit management, dealing with dissociation, and coping with change as related to healing. In recent years, Ms. Power’s goal has been to apply the research about how people learn to training and education programs in mental health for the purpose of improving training and treatment outcomes. Her work with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s projects since 1999, as well as her work with Sidran on Risking Connection®, increases the availability and accessibility of evidence-informed models for responding to trauma to more people.
Elizabeth is a Senior Risking Connection trainer. EPower & Associates, Inc. is a Sidran training partner, offering Risking Connection® and other training programs in the domestic and international arena.
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Elizabeth Vermilyea, M.A., served as Training Director at Sidran Institute for over seven years. During that time she was responsible for coordinating and providing oversight for all training endeavors and developing training programs and materials. She is a Senior Risking Connection trainer. She is the author of Growing Beyond Survival: A Self-Help Toolkit for Managing Traumatic Stress (2000).
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Patricia D. Wilcox, LCSW, is the Vice President of Strategic Development at Klingberg Family Centers in New Britain, Connecticut. Her career in child and family treatment has included the state child welfare system, the Superior Court, private practice, and Newington Children’s Hospital Day Treatment. At Klingberg she has been a clinician and the Clinical Director before obtaining her current position in 2005. She specializes in treatment of traumatized children and their families and has presented extensively on this topic. She is the creator of the Restorative Approach™ , a trauma- and relationship-based approach to congregate care treatment of children. She is the current Executive Director of the Trauma Research, Education, and Training Institute (TREATI) and is a Senior Risking Connection trainer.
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Risking Connection® Executive Leadership
Esther Giller, M.A., is President of Sidran Institute (www.sidran.org), a nonprofit organization she founded in 1987, that helps people understand, recover from, and provide care for psychological trauma, extreme stress, and dissociative experiences. She specializes in forging collaborative, multidisciplinary responses to traumatized individuals and families in settings as diverse as state mental health systems, jails, urban neighborhoods, and faith communities. Under her direction, Sidran provides education and publications for professional and lay audiences, trauma information resources and referrals, advocacy, and self-care/mutual support programming.
Ms. Giller has authored many articles and co-edited two books (MPD from the Inside Out and Risking Connection® in Faith Communities). She has been quoted about trauma in Time, Newsweek, NPR, MSNBC, CBS HealthWatch and other media. She received her master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Mike Uretsky, M.B.A., Ph. D. Prior to retirement from academia, Prof. Mike Uretsky was Director of the New York University Center for Advanced Technology and Professor of Information Systems at New York University's Stern School of Business (a department that he founded and Chaired for several years). He has a long entrepreneurial career with extensive accomplishments in both the academic and public service areas.
Using his training in both business and computer science as a base, Mike founded the business-oriented computer science programs at the University of Illinois, Columbia University, and New York University. He founded the Information Systems Department at NYU, and then helped lead it to the point where it was one of the top programs in the country. He developed one of the first MBA programs making extensive use of simulation-based training. Participants in this program have gone on to leading corporate positions. Mike develops and runs seminars dealing with the digital economy and the impact of information-related technologies on company and industry performance. Most recently, he was Co-Chair of the World Wide Web Conference, the most prestigious international forum for the discussion and development of technologies needed to advance the Internet. He currently serves on the Educational Technology Committee of the NYU School of Medicine.
Professor Uretsky has an extensive history in public and humanitarian affairs. He received his graduate degrees from Ohio State University.
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