Dr Allan Wade PhD
Allan Wade Ph.D. lives on the unceded land of the Quw’utsun and Malahat First Nations, on southern Vancouver Island, Canada. He works as a family therapist, independent scholar, and consultant with a primary interest in promoting socially just and effective responses in cases of violence, broadly defined. Allan is pre-occupied with the question of how humans preserve dignity in response to violence and humiliation. In this respect, Allan is the grateful student of Kaska Dena elders living on Kaska homeland on north-western Turtle Island.
Allan and his partner Cathy are the parents of five adults, the grand-parents of six truly grand children, and spiritual kin to two golden Labrador retrievers. Allan and his colleagues (Nick Todd, Shelly Dean, Cathy Richardson, Linda Coates) are best known for developing Response-Based Practice; a method of individual and family therapy, a framework for research and analysis, and a guide for practice across the institutions that respond in cases of violence.
Allan provides training and consultation in Canada and abroad. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on research and practice, including the far too expensive book, Response-Based Approaches to Interpersonal Violence (2016), co-edited with Margareta Hyden and David Gadd (Palgrave MacMillan).
Cathy Richardson
Catherine Richardson/Kineweskwêw, Ph.D. is Métis with Cree, Gwichin and English ancestry. She is the Director of First Peoples Studies at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal and a registered psychotherapist. Cathy holds a research Chair in Indigenous Healing Knowledges and is a co-founder of the Centre for Response-Based Practice. She studies colonial violence, healing and dignity. She has published six books, the most recent ones entitled “Facing the Mountain: Indigenous Healing in the Shadow of Colonialism Speaking the Wisdom of Our Time.
Shelly Dean
Shelly Dean is a family therapist, a supervisor, and an organizational consultant from the traditional, unceded Tk’emlups te Secwepemc territory, also known as Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Shelly works for all family members when violence is at issue, with a special interest in victims of institutionalized violence. She currently works in a direct-service counselling office that provides family therapy and supervision, although a long part of her career was spent in the non-profit sector. In this setting, Shelly applied the principles of Response-Based Practice in leadership and other organizational priorities. This included ensuring that policies and human relation challenges were, in practice, upholding the dignity of all people. She was also a foster parent for just over 15 years, and credits much of her learning to her large family. Shelly has also taught in the Master of Counselling programs through City University of Seattle and the Master of Education program at Thompson Rivers University. Shelly is a proud daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and dog-owner.