Media profile of David. A. Wolfe, Ph.D., RBC Investments Chair in Children's Mental Health and Developmental Psychopathology, Centre for Addiction & Mental Health

Dr. David Wolfe is a psychologist and author specializing in issues affecting children and youth - including how to form healthy relationships, and prevention of bullying, dating violence, unsafe sex, substance abuse and other consequences of unhealthy relationships.   He delivers informed, professional expertise in a friendly, engaging manner, and is highly effective in reaching a wide variety of audiences.

Dr. Wolfe is pioneering new approaches to preventing many societal problems.   Educating children and adolescents about forming healthy relationships should be a public health priority, he says, and he has developed The Fourth "R", a grade nine curriculum on forming healthy relationships, which is currently being piloted in selected Ontario Schools.  

Dr. Wolfe has appeared on many radio and television programs.   He recently acted as consulting psychologist in assessing the claims of the victims of Mount Cashel.

RBC Investments through the RBC Foundation funded this chair of learning, which is held jointly by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto.

He can discuss:

• Forming Healthy Relationships in Childhood and Adolescence
• Dating and Relationship Violence
• Childhood bullying - a precursor to adolescent dating violence and spousal abuse in adulthood
• Preventing adolescent problems such as dating violence, unsafe sex, substance abuse
• Trauma resulting from unhealthy relationships: easier to prevent than to treat
• Tangible advice for parents on how to work with adolescents and keep the lines of communication open
• Child sexual and physical abuse, child neglect, child witnesses to domestic violence
  Biography:

Dr. Wolfe has broad research and clinical interests in abnormal child and adolescent psychology, with a special focus on child abuse, domestic violence, and developmental psychopathology. He has authored numerous articles on these topics, especially in relation to the impact of early childhood trauma on later development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.

Before being appointed RBC Investments Chair in Children's Mental Health & Developmental Psychopathology at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Dr. Wolfe was Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and Academic Director of the Center for Research on Violence Against Women and Children at the University of Western Ontario.   He was formerly chair of the United Nations Sub-Committee on Child Abuse in Peacetime, and Chair of the Violence and Traumatic Stress Review Committee, US National Institute of Mental Health.

He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and past President of Division 37 (Child, Youth, and Family Services).

Recent Honours:

• Outstanding Career Award from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children,  2000
• John Dewan Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Psychology from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, 2000

Recent Books:

• Children of Battered Women (with P. Jaffe and S. Wilson; Sage, 1990)
• Preventing Physical and Emotional Abuse of Children (Guilford, 1991)
• Alternatives to Violence: Empowering Youth to Develop Healthy Relationships (with C. Wekerle & K. Scott; Sage, 1996)
• Youth Relationships Manual (Sage, 1996), and Abnormal Child Psychology (with E. Mash; Wadsworth, 2002).

For more information please contact Sylvia Hagopian, Media Relations Coordinator CAMH, at (416) 595-6015.

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