Dr. Ghayda Hassan
Founder and Director of the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Radicalization and Extremist Violence; Full Professor of Clinical Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal
Dr. Ghayda Hassan is a clinical psychologist and professor of clinical psychology at UQÀM. She has several research, clinical, and community-based national and international affiliations. She is the director of the Canada Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Extremist Violence (CPN-PREV, funded by Public Safety Canada). She also is a UNESCO co-chair on Prevention of Violence Radicalization, as well as a researcher and clinical consultant at the SHERPA-RAPS team and the CIUSSS-COIM. She is a researcher, clinician, as well as a policy consultant in matters of interventions in the context of violence (radicalization, family violence, and war). Her systematic reviews, research, and clinical activities are centered around four main areas of clinical cultural psychology: 1) Social suffering, inter-community relations, radicalization, and extremist violence; 2) Intervention in family violence and cultural diversity; 3) Identity, belonging, and mental health of children and adolescents from ethnic/religious minorities; and 4) Working with vulnerable immigrants and refugees.
Andrew McKenzie, MSW, RSW
Andrew was raised in Toronto/Tkaronto and has worked as a social worker since 2012, primarily with children, youth and their families. Since 2020 Andrew has worked in the field of preventing and countering violent extremism. For four years he supervised a team that worked with individuals who were engaged with ideologies that could lead them to commit hate-based violence. Now he is in his PhD, studying the core competencies needed for social workers to engage effectively with people involved in violent extremist/hate groups, and is providing consultation to the CASW for the Building Practice Resilience and Knowledge – Preventing and Addressing Radicalization and Violent Extremism (SW-PRE) Project.