• professionals in the child welfare, child protection, and broader child focused sectors
• agencies involved at any level within communities especially those working for children's wellbeing
• Students studying in associated areas
• local government
• schools (especially schools as community centres)
• young people themselves

Ora Prilleltensky earned her doctorate in Counselling Psychology from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. From 2000 to 2002, Ora taught in the Counselling program at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Ora is now teaching Counselling in the Department of Human and Organizational Development in Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.

In 1994 Ora was awarded the Norman Barwin Scholarship from Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. In 1995 she was awarded a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a two year period, as well as an Ontario Graduate Scholarship.

Ora is a mother with a physical disability, the author of Motherhood and disability: Children and choices (2004, Palgrave/Macmillan), and co-author, with Isaac Prilleltensky, of Promoting well-being: Linking personal, organizational, and community change (2006, John Wiley & Sons). Ora is a Board member of Center for Independent Living of Middle Tennessee.  Ora is a Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and is registered as a psychologist with the Psychologists' Registration Board of Victoria.

Isaac Prilleltensky

Isaac Prilleltensky received his MA in clinical child psychology from Tel Aviv University in 1983 and his PhD in Psychology from the University of Manitoba in 1989. He worked as a school psychologist for 8 years, later becoming a community psychologist. Isaac has written or co-edited seven books on community psychology and mental health and several dozen papers on the subject.

Prior to joining Vanderbilt University, where he directs the PhD program in Community Research and Action, he was Research Chair in Psychology at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, and before that he directed the community psychology program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.

Isaac is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Society for Community Research and Action. In 2002 he was an invited Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He currently leads a collaborative project with the United Way of Nashville to help human services move from a charity- based model towards a social justice, preventive and empowering paradigm.
He is also Co-Principal Investigator of a USA $ 3.9 million action research grant to assist the Tennessee Department of Human Services to improve its culture and effectiveness. He founded the Wellness Promotion Unit at Victoria University in Melbourne in 2001, and was the recipient the same year the Vice Chancellor's excellence in research award.

Isaac and Ora Prilleltensky have, between them, twenty five years in the helping professions, working with children, young people and adults in a variety of settings including schools, clinics, and universities.  They have consulted and worked with individuals, families, organisations, communities and governments in Canada, United States, Israel and Australia.  Both have been published extensively in the fields of prevention of child abuse and neglect and in the promotion of wellbeing and resilience.  Isaac is Dean of the School of Education at the University of Miami in Florida, and Ora teaches in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies. Both have been published extensively in the fields of prevention of child abuse and neglect and in the promotion of wellbeing and resilience.
Download Isaac's Powerpoint Presentation [in pdf format 1.14 Meg] HERE
To view Isaac's publications and presentations: Go to his website HERE
Isaac and Ora have collaborated on their latest publication, Promoting wellbeing: Linking psychological, organizational and community change which was launched during their Australia visit.