Jan Ference BEd, M.S in Counselling, IPMHF (Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellow) has spent her entire career working with at-risk children and their families. She completed her Bachelor of Education at the University of Victoria and got her first teaching job in an inner-city school. She quickly realized that she wanted to know more about the social emotional well-being of the complex children she was teaching, and so completed a Master’s in Counselling program at the University of Portland.

Dr. Bruce Perry’s model inspired Jan to change her practice and the systems that serve the most complex children. Jan currently mentors clinicians from around the world, who are training with Dr. Perry. She has trained thousands of colleagues in this model with the goal of changing the lens through which we see the most vulnerable families. Jan continues to extend her practice through mentoring clinicians who are training with Dr. Perry, as well as being an active and passionate National Trainer for the Brazleton Touchpoints Center. She has also graduated from the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship through the University of California, and the Reflective Supervision Academy through UC Davis.

In 2016, Jan created and led a specialized early intervention trauma team, working intensely with perinatal women who have Opioid Use challenges, and is currently leading the transformation of the education system in the Yukon. Most significantly, she is supporting the newly formed First Nations School Board to bring education back to their communities. This is an example of reconciliation in action, which is aligned with Jan’s intentions, values, and heart.

Andrew McKenzie BA, MACP, RCC, NMT Certified comes to his clinical work with insight and knowledge gained through experiences as an adoptive and birth parent, as well as nearly twenty years of working with neurodiverse children and adults in the British Columbia public school system, as well as in various non-profit mental health settings focussing on perinatal substance use and early life adversity. Andrew’s experiential and academic understandings of how strong, attuned relationships are the most potent ingredients of healing, underpin his role as a mental health clinician and consultant in both non-profit and private practices. Through these positions, Andrew, a BCACC Registered Clinical Counsellor, Neurosequential Model Clinician, and Brazelton Touchpoints Trainer, works to support vulnerable families through training provincial systems such as foster parents, schools, healthcare, and many more, in understanding the developmental impacts of trauma, and the healing power of attuned relationships.