Speaker Bios
Jennifer C. Brandt, MSW, LISW, Ph.D.
As Assistant-Director of Veterinary Student Affairs at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Jennifer Brandt is leading the effort to provide veterinary professionals with the communication, interpersonal and teamwork skills needed to promote quality veterinary care and veterinary career success.
Dr. Brandt’s service to the college includes communication skills training, practice management education and educational and mental health support services. Dr. Brandt’s professional development courses offer applied learning opportunities that foster veterinary teambuilding and enhance veterinary team communication, while promoting a culture of superior client service that enhances veterinary client satisfaction and advances the clinical learning model.
Dr. Brandt has served as a faculty trainer for the Bayer Institute for Healthcare Communication Faculty Development Program since 2003. Dr. Brandt is a nationally and internationally acclaimed guest lecturer at veterinary colleges and conferences and serves as a faculty member for the AVMA’s annual Veterinary Leadership Experience.
Dr. Brandt previously served as a medical social worker, educator and researcher specializing in work with survivors of crime and trauma and bereavement facilitation. She received her bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Indianapolis and her master’s and doctoral degrees in social work from The Ohio State University.
Topics include:
- Building Effective Teams
- Getting the Story: Effective Client History Taking
- Euthanasia: Guiding Clients Through Difficult Decisions
- Children and Pet Loss: Promoting Health Grieving
- Eye of the Beholder: Managing Difficult Interactions
- Strangers in Crisis: Partners in Care
- Are We Good Here? Ethics in Veterinary Medicine
- It Goes Without Saying: Nonverbal Communication
- Enhancing Adherence: Healthy Animals and Satisfied Clients
- The Elephant in the Room: Discussions About Money
Susan Cohen, DSW, ACSW
Dr. Susan P. Cohen joined The Animal Medical Center (AMC) as Director of Counseling in 1982. She helps clients cope with the illness of their pets, helps them make decisions, and supports them when their pets die. In 1983 she developed the first-ever Pet Loss Support Group and began an animal assisted activity program, Pet Outreach. For Pet Outreach a Coordinator screens pets and volunteers and brings them to visit vulnerable populations in residential and day programs. Dr. Cohen lectures and runs workshops for staff on issues like decision making and stress management. In addition she counsels employees about personal and work issues.
In addition AMC serves as a field placement for graduate schools of social work and other mental health and animal health programs. Working primarily with Columbia University School of Social Work Dr. Cohen teaches graduate social work interns fundamental skills of individual and group counseling, as well as how to work with other kinds of professionals. Interns also develop and run new programs, such as wellness for AMC staff. Veterinarians and graduate students have done precepteeships and other training to learn how to counsel clients. Dr. Cohen also consults with animal health companies, which, thanks to the internet and toll-free telephone numbers, find themselves for the first time dealing directly with upset clients.
Dr. Cohen has written many articles and lectured widely to veterinary colleges, veterinary conferences, veterinary technician programs, and human health groups on pet loss, human-animal interaction, client relations, stress management, compassion fatigue, and career development. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and Smithsonian Magazine. In addition, she has made numerous television and radio addresses, including “The Today Show,” "20-20," and "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Her most recent academic articles are “Can Pets Serve as Family Members,” in The Western Journal of Nursing Research and Compassion Fatigue and the Veterinary Health Team in Veterinary Clinics: Small Animal Practice.
Catherine A. Faver, Ph.D., LMSW, is a Professor of Social Work at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. Her research focuses on animal abuse and family violence, companion animals in Latino families, and spirituality and traditional healing. As a co-founder of the People & Pets Coalition in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, she has made numerous presentations on the link between animal abuse and interpersonal violence. She earned her Ph.D. in social work and sociology at the University of Michigan and her MSSW at the University of Texas at Arlington. A native Texan, she has held faculty appointments at the University of Tennessee (1983-2002) and the University of Texas at Arlington (1979-1983).
Ann R. Howie, LICSW, ACSW
Ann has enjoyed and learned from animals since birth – she was up on horseback before she was walking. Ann provides national and international consultation and training to help people live well with animals through her business, Human-Animal Solutions. Her unique combination of personal experience and professional training in both the human and animal fields create a person distinctively qualified to bring people and animals together safely and effectively.
Ann began integrating animals into her counseling practice in 1987 and has worked with animals in (human) healthcare ever since. She has incorporated animal-assisted interactions into her work in the following settings:
- In-patient psychiatry
- Acute-care pediatric, medical-surgical, and intensive care units
- In-patient medical rehabilitation
- Skilled nursing – transitional care, long-term care, and special care
- Home health
- Hospice
- Out-patient counseling (individual and group)
She is an adjunct faculty member in the Masters in Counseling Psychology program at St. Martin’s University in Olympia, Washington. She is also adjunct faculty with the University of Denver’s on-line Animals in Human Health Certificate.
Ann is Delta Society’s 2006-2007 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient for her work in animal-assisted interactions. She founded and coordinated a hospital animal-assisted activities & therapy program from 1989-1997. Ann was Delta Society®’s national Animal-Assisted Therapy Director from 1995-2000, and she is an Eden Associate. She wrote a textbook for animal-program coordinators and contributes to internationally recognized training books on handler skills and animal-handler evaluation. She was part of the initial task force to identify standards for the emerging field of animal-assisted therapy.
Ann shares her life with her husband and (currently) two Soft-Coated Wheaten Terriers, a Standard Poodle, and multitudes of wild birds, squirrels, and rabbits.
Stephanie W. Johnson graduated with a BA in Psychology from Louisiana Tech University in 1990; a Master of Social Work from Louisiana State University in 1992and was licensed in Clinical Social Work in 1994. She has been employed by the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine in the Office of Student and Academic Affairs since 1990 and is an Instructor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences.
For the last 16 years Stephanie has specialized in the area of the Human Animal Bond and Grief, both counseling clients and lecturing to veterinarians, students and the public. She teaches communication skills and facilitates throughout the four years of the veterinary curriculum. She also supervises an intern from the LSU School of Social Work Masters program and Graduate Social Workers working toward licensure. Stephanie is a member of the NASW, the American Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians, and Phi Zeta.
Christina Risley-Curtiss is an associate professor of Social Work at Arizona State University and has over 20 years of practice and management experience in a combination of public health and child welfare. She has authored/co-authored many publications and presented numerous scholarly papers and workshops to various local, state and national groups. Her primary areas of research are in the other animal-human bond and child welfare. Her course–Other Animal-Human Connections won the HSUS 2004 Society and Animals New Course Award, she has a grant-funded national study of social work practitioner’s knowledge of the animal-human bond, and a grant funded project to support social work interns in animal welfare agencies. She chairs The Arizona Humane LINK, a coalition of animal welfare and human service agencies in Maricopa County, AZ. and is developing a diversion program for children and youth who have abused animals. She is both a faculty advisor and Fellow at the new Oxford Centre on Animal Ethics. She recently presented at Oxford on the role of other animals in child welfare, at the American Humane Association Annual Conference on other animals and communities of color, and at the Social Work Spirituality conference on spirituality and other animals. She also started, in collaboration with the Animals and Society Institute, has launched on online professional development program to train master’s level counselors to treat those who have abused other animals. She grew up on a farm in Connecticut, where her father and grandfather practiced veterinary medicine. She does hands-on rescue work including having volunteered at Best Friends Katrina shelter in Tylertown, MS. and being a founding member of a TNR feral cat program at ASU. She currently lives in a trans-species cultural home with 19+ other animals.
Kenneth Shapiro is executive director of Animals and Society Institute; founder and editor of Society and Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies; cofounder and coeditor of Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science; and editor of Human-Animal Studies Book Series. Shapiro earned his BA from Harvard University and his PhD in clinical psychology from Duke University. He is the author of 3 books, most recently -- Animal Models of Human Psychology: Critique of Science, Ethics and Policy. He has been married for 27 years and is father of two children and grandfather of two. His interests include vegan cooking, jazz, history, and table tennis.
Bert Troughton, MSW, Senior Director, ASPCA National Outreach
As Senior Director of Resources and Communications for ASPCA National Outreach, Bert oversees a range of national training resources including the ASPCA’s website for professionals: www.aspcapro.org, the Join ASPCA Mission: Orange initiative and Meet Your Match™. Before joining the ASPCA, Bert was the CEO of a regional humane society in New England that became well known under her leadership for its extraordinary vision and capacity to deliver on an aggressive strategic agenda. Past president of both the New Hampshire Federation of Humane Organizations and the New England Federation of Humane Societies, she is a popular speaker and trainer in the field and received the 2004 Dennis White Excellence in Teaching award from the American Humane Association. Bert authored the ASPCA/Petfinder shelter management page from 2000 – 2003 and co-authored the book Making Plans to Make a Difference – A Business Planning Guide for Shelters.
Prior to joining animal protection, Bert worked for ten years as a clinical social worker – treating individuals and families in community mental health settings. She has over 20 years of experience in nonprofits, having served several very successful organizations in the capacities of senior manager, executive officer and Board officer. Bert has both led and facilitated successful long-range planning for individual organizations and large collaborations. She is particularly interested in the intersections of Dialogue Education (Vella), Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider) and Learning Organizations (Senge).
Bert has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Connecticut; post-graduate certificates in Psychotherapy, Family Therapy, Field Supervision and Nonprofit Management and is a Certified Teacher of Dialogue Education and a Senior Associate with Global Learning Partners.
Tracy Zaparanick has worked as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker for 13 years and a Compassion Fatigue Specialist for 7 years. She completed her PhD from the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. While completing her PhD, she worked in the UT College of Veterinary Medicine. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Social Work degree in 1989 from the University of Kentucky and her Master of Science in Social Work degree in 1992 from the University of Louisville.
Prior to her move to Knoxville, she worked in the Center for the Study of Human-Animal Interdependent Relationships at Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine. While at Tuskegee, she received a grant to begin investigating compassion fatigue within nonhuman animal-related fields, an unprecedented study. Tracy has presented at numerous local, regional and national conferences on subjects such as compassion fatigue and crisis intervention.