09 Dec ACDE Winter Meeting 2026
Featuring Dr. Michael Ungar
Building Resilient Workplaces, Schools and Communities: Making Resources Available for People to Thrive
ACDE is pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Ungar will present at our Winter Meeting, taking place online on Friday, February 6, 2026.
Dr. Ungar is a family therapist and professor of social work at Dalhousie University where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience. His research on resilience around the world and across cultures has made him the number one ranked social work scholar in the world, with numerous educational institutions, government agencies, not-for-profits and businesses relying on his research and clinical work to guide their approaches to nurturing child, family, organizational and community wellbeing under stress.
He the author of 18 books for mental health professionals, educators, caregivers and employers, including his most recent works The Limits of Resilience: When to Persevere, When to Change, and When to Quit, a book for individuals and organizations under stress, Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success, a book about our emerging understanding of resilience as more than individual grit, and Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs: 20 Skills to Build Resilience, a book for mental health professionals and educators. As well as having received numerous awards for his work, including the Canadian Association of Social Workers National Distinguished Service Award and being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Ungar also maintains a blog, Nurturing Resilience, which can be read on Psychology Today’s website.
Dr. Ungar’s presentation will show that resilience is much more than an individual’s personal capacity to overcome adversity. It is instead a reflection of how well workplaces, families, institutions, service providers, and communities work together to create opportunities for people of all ages to navigate their way to the resources they need for well-being while making those resources available in ways that people experience as meaningful. Using lively case examples and video of individuals who have been exposed to adversities such as economic stress, family violence, mental illness, natural disasters, poverty, and racism, Dr. Ungar will demonstrate how we can design interventions that enhance people’s access to the resources essential for resilience and mental health. Dr. Ungar’s work suggests the need for a culturally sensitive interpretation of what resilience means to people from diverse backgrounds. His presentation will end with concrete examples of how communities have made resilience-promoting resources readily available to those with complex needs.
