Robin Alter, PhD, CPsych, received her undergraduate degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. She was the head of the children's program at Tri-County Mental Health in Northern Florida before moving to Toronto, ON, Canada, where she has been working in children’s mental health in since 1980. Alter has been employed by two of the largest children’s mental health centers in the Toronto area for over thirty-six years—The Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, and Blue Hills Child and Family Centre.
Alter also works with Anishnawbe Health Toronto, providing fetal alcohol assessments for the people of the First Nations community. She has taught psychology at York University, and maintains a private practice with Alter, Stuckler and Associates in the Toronto area. She is a trustee with the Psychology Foundation of Canada. Alter gives many public lectures to parent groups, teachers, and principals, and has been on numerous radio and television programs talking about children’s mental health issues. She is author of Anxiety and the Gift of Imagination, and is the anxiety expert for the website, the ABCs of Mental Health.
Crystal Clarke, MSW, RSW, received her undergraduate social work degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada in 2007. Before continuing on to complete her master’s degree, Clarke worked as a social worker in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in the city of St. John’s, NL, Canada, while also supporting foster families through her involvement on the board of the Newfoundland and Labrador Foster Families Association. Clarke received her master’s of social work degree at the University of Toronto in 2010, where she specialized in clinical practice with children and families, and also completed the collaborative program in addiction studies. By 2009, Clarke was involved with The Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, one of the largest children’s mental health centers in Toronto, ON, Canada, where she was employed as a child and family therapist until 2016, when she moved to the Toronto District School Board to work as a social worker with school-aged children and their families.
Additionally, Clarke maintains her own private practice, Clarke Psychotherapy, in Toronto. In 2015, Clarke was also appointed as an adjunct lecturer for the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto as a result of her ongoing commitment to the training and supervision of social work students. Clarke continues to expand upon her own knowledge and expertise in the field of mental health through her training at the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis.
