English Program Faculty
Our faculty come from different countries and have diverse backgrounds and professions. Their extensive studies in this approach have included a personal two-year internship with Dr. Neufeld. All are actively involved in teaching and practicing the approach.
The faculty is listed in alphabetical order by surname.
Lori Abramowitz
Licensed Mental Health Counselor
Buffalo New York
Lori has worked with youth of all ages through a variety of programs in school, community, outpatient and inpatient hospital settings. Lori has been studying and applying Dr. Neufeld`s insight for over a decade and this has added depth to her work as a helping professional and has enriched her life as a mother of three. Lori has a private practice working with children, adolescents, families and parents in the Buffalo area.
Karen Bollman
Infant Development Consultant
Abbotsford, BC, Canada
Karen works to support families and their little ones, aged birth to three years. Although she is currently focused on early intervention, she has spent her entire career supporting families raising children, youth, and adults with special needs. Karen holds one of our most important faculty portfolios - anchoring our flagship course: Intensive One on Making Sense of Kids. She insists that Dr. Neufeld’s paradigm, and working with individuals from birth through the lifespan, continues to transform her.
Robin Brooks-Sherriff
Community Health Nurse
Calgary, Canada
Robin has worked as a registered nurse in various capacities with families and clients for over 30 years. She offers a variety of courses and is available for speaking engagements. Her favourite material to teach and support is the adolescence material - Making Sense of Adolescence and Adolescence & Sexuality. This is a good match to her current work as a Sexual Health Nurse. Robin serves on our admin team and holds various staff responsibilities including managing Dr. Neufeld’s events. She is a mother, wife, daughter, sister and many other things in a complicated loving family.
Joanna Bylinka
Psychologist & Psychotherapist
Lodz, Poland
Joanna holds the all-important portfolio of research with the Neufeld Institute. Given her doctoral training in classical psychology, her experience as editor and publisher, and her love of the science of psychology, she is well-suited for the role. She not only collects published articles that support Neufeld's articulation of the attachment-based developmental approach but also helps guide graduate students and researchers who have made this approach the focus of their thesis or studies. She oversees a separate website dedicated to this task. Joanna is a mother of two children.
Laina Clugston
Early Childhood Specialist
South Freeport, Maine USA
Laina has worked for over thirty years with parents and young children. She has a master’s degree in human development with a focus on Jungian psychology. Laina recently retired as lead teacher and mentor in a Waldorf program for young children at Bowdoin College. She is the mother of adult children and stepmother of one. Her focus continues to be helping families clarify and deepen relationships through the Neufeld approach, particularly those with young children. She creatively weaves together theory and practice for both home and classroom settings.
Eva de Gosztonyi
School Psychologist
Toronto, Canada
Before she retired, Eva had worked for over 50 years in schools across Canada, many of these years running an provincial organization in Quebec that provided support to teachers and schools with students who presented with special behavioural challenges. We are so grateful that in her retirement, Eva has stepped up to coordinate, supervise and mentor our timely Ukraine Orphan Project. Eva is still active giving presentations, weaving together theory and practice to help those who work with children and youth become the best that they can be. Eva likes being married, and has two adult children as well as grandchildren.
Jule Epp
Psychologist & Therapist
Berlin, Germany
While directing the German language program from Berlin where she has lived for over 25 years, Jule still finds time to teach and support courses in the English Program. Her experiences with her own hypersensitive son paved the way for her passion for the field of autism and play. Having worked directly for many years with children diagnosed with autism, Jule developed an expertise that is unparalleled, which was why Dr. Neufeld sought her out as a collaborator in creating the Neufeld Institute course on hypersensitivity. Jule is an engaging presenter and workshop leader, and continues to support parents and professionals, including online, who have children diagnosed with autism in their care.
Heather Ferguson
Clinical Counselor
Cobble Hill, BC, Canada
Heather has a special interest in the topics of resilience and neuroscience. She is available to speak in her region and to teach any of the Neufeld Institute courses in person. Besides parent consulting (including online) she also serves adults, adolescents and couples. A steadfast advocate for children and the adults who seek to understand them, Heather has a warm and playful approach. Adults leave her courses, presentations, and sessions heartened and ready to lead struggling children toward emotional health and well-being. Heather is married and a mother of two adult children. She is an avid gardener with a special flair for growing beautiful dahlia.
Sandy Hitchens
Counsellor and Consultant
Christchurch, New Zealand
Sandy is the director of Neufeld Aotearoa, a regional Neufeld Institute that was established because of the special interest and culture of the area. She puts her Masters in Education to good use opening many doors, including those of school systems, academia, and treatment. She loves teaching, facilitating courses both in person and online. Her passion is the Troubled Kids material. Together with her husband she has four adult children and a granddaughter, all of whom she loves spending time with, cooking, drinking good coffee and dreaming up adventures.
Bree Jordan
Counseling Therapist
Winnipeg, Canada
Breanna considers herself fortunate to work in a clinic where the practice is heavily informed by the insights from the Neufeld paradigm. She also takes on private clients both in-person and online. Bree enjoys teaching, whether it is informally in consultation with parents and families, or more formally through delivering and supporting courses. Given her heart and aptitude with words, she has the special assignment of supporting our Intensive III course – Becoming Attached – where the focus is often adults and not just children. She is married to an elementary school teacher and she has two adolescent children. She can often be found hiking or milling about in her garden fussing over her plants or playing ukulele and making music with her family.
Marla Klyne Kolomaya
Counsellor
St Martin, Manitoba
Marla is particularly drawn to the warmth and intuitive caring of Dr. Neufeld’s developmental-relational approach as well as how right it feels to walk alongside parents as they face the many daunting challenges of raising children in today’s culture. She has found her life’s work in supporting families, educators, and professionals with an enthusiastic and unwavering belief that relationship is the answer for what ails us. Marla is available to offer online courses to groups including parents, educators and helping professionals who are yearning to make sense of complex problems and behaviours they are encountering with children and adolescents in their care.
Celena Krahn
Naturalist & Animal Whisperer
Powell River, BC
Celena is a mother, a listener, a writer, a student of the wild. She has always been intrigued by relationship, be it with people, animals, plants or places. As the full-time solo parent for her son, finding the non-behaviouristic Neufeld approach was refreshing and relieving, and she joined the Neufeld staff in 2014 and Faculty in 2025. She has many stories to share about the journey from the frustration and grief of recognizing the wisdom of the approach, but not knowing how to embody it, to it landing and integrating and blooming and bearing fruit. She continues to learn from the wild and its role in rest, play and right relationship.
Deborah MacNamara
Therapist, Educator and Author
Vancouver, BC
Deborah's PhD has been well put to use in opening doors for teaching at university, addressing esteemed institutions such as United Nations and the Dalai Lama Center, developing her own professional counselling clinic, and expressing herself through writing. She appears regularly on media channels as well as writes for parenting websites and magazines. She is the author of three books (one on Preschoolers, oneon Attachment & Food and a children's book entitled the Sorry Plane) that are an integral part of the Neufeld Institute mission. She has an international reputation as a polished speaker and we are thrilled to have her as a senior member of our Faculty. Please see Deborah's website for more information.
Michele Maurer
Couple and Family Therapist
Langley BC
Michele is a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a niece, a cousin, a wife, a mother and a singer. She works with couples, parents, expectant and newly parenting couples in her private practice in Langley. Michele has 30 years experience providing counselling for individuals, couples and families, in mental health care and non-profit organizations. As part of her staff/faculty role, Michele leads our course support team as well as overseeing our in-house training and our support for helping professionals. Michele’s favourite material includes the marriage and therapy courses. Michele has experience working with larger audiences and is available to take requests as well as travel if needed. Please consult Michele’s website for more information.
Genevieve Schreier
Course Facilitator & Consultant
Vancouver BC
Genevieve has been with the Neufeld Institute since its inception in a variety of roles and now sits on faculty and helms the Level II Intensive-The Separation Complex. With an undergraduate degree in sociology and a Master’s degree in International Relations, she has always had a passion for exploring human connection and uncovering potential. Her main areas of interest involve exploring alpha/dependent instincts, the separation complex, the construct of resilience and how we bounce back, and most recently, the healing potential of emotional playgrounds.
Tamara Strijack
Clinical Counsellor
Mayne Island, British Columbia
Tamara Strijack is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and the Academic Dean of the Institute. Tamara has worked with children and adolescents in various roles over the last twenty-five years and now primarily offers parenting consulting, workshops and teaches university courses for teachers and counsellors in training. Connection and relationship continue to be central themes in all her roles, both personally and professionally. She is the mother of two young women. As Dr. Gordon Neufeld`s daughter, Tamara offers a unique inside view, bringing together her own experience and insight with her father`s theoretical material.
Terry Warburton
Counsellor
Carman, Manitoba
Terry is a professional therapist, supervisor and course facilitator who has worked in southern Manitoba for many years. She has worked in a variety of settings with families and youth including resource centres, daycares, youth programs, schools, public health and respite foster care. Terry speaks to groups about mental health, parenting and relationship issues. Terry believes that parenting is the most exciting, rewarding and challenging job that there is and so she is passionate about supporting parents and helping them make sense of their children. Dr. Neufeld`s approach has had a significant impact on her professional work with families as well as on her own journey of parenting three young adult children. She warmly and sensitively shares her insights with others.
Lisa Weiner
Nurse & Parent Consultant
Portland, Oregon
Lisa Weiner is a mother of two sons, a nurse practitioner, parent consultant and an inspiring teacher of the Neufeld paradigm. She loves walking alongside parents, teachers and helping professionals while they make sense of the children in their care through classes and her private parent consulting practice. She has a special passion for helping parents make sense of adolescents, alpha challenges and counterwill. Since Lisa first found the Neufeld Institute she has immersed herself in Dr. Neufeld`s attachment-based developmental paradigm and has found that it has deeply enriched her parenting, her understanding of herself and other adults, and her appreciation of the wonders of human development.
Adrienne Wood
Teacher & Parent Consultant
Aukland, New Zealand
Adrienne Wood was the first Regional Director of the Neufeld Institute program in New Zealand and continues to serve on the Neufeld Aotearoa team. She is an experienced teacher of high-risk youth in multicultural New Zealand secondary schools. She is also a parent consultant, course facilitator, presenter and mother to two adolescents. Adrienne has a particular interest in children with complex behavioural needs. Adrienne naturally infuses play and music in her work.
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Charity & Non-Profit Status
The Neufeld Institute is a registered Canadian charitable organization under the name Neufeld Institute Foundation and is also registered as a NPO in British Columbia. If you would like to make a contribution to us, please go to our donation page.
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