Lorri A. Yasenik, RSW, RPT-S, Ph.D.

Child and Family Therapist
Co-Director-Co-Owner Rocky Mountain Play Therapy institute
Calgary, AB Canada

Email:yasenikl@athabaskau.ca
Phone: 403-228-0011 ext. 229
Web: www.lorriyasenik.com and www.rmpti.com

I have been working with children and families for over 25 years and this has led me down many inter-related paths of study and practice including play therapy, treatment of trauma, family mediation, parenting coordination and family therapy. I have now worked with over 5000 children and their families. This experience has offered me a unique opportunity to enter into the lived worlds of many children and adults. Being a part of their life stories has enriched and changed my live and increased my awareness of the breadth and depth of issues people experience. I am a certified and registered clinical Supervisor. 

I have been straddling many intersecting communities over the years of my clinical practice as the work I have been involved in made it necessary to work with the positivistic legal system. Over the past 20 years I have observed and been a part of a slow paradigm shift in the ways Judges, Lawyers and Mental Health professionals work with and view families in relation to law. The introduction to Mediation and less adversarial, more collaborative approaches began to increase. This has been an exciting (albeit at times difficult) time to be in clinical practice. I have been an active part of the Mediation community and am the past President of the Alberta Family Mediation Society. I was honoured to receive the Dr. John Haynes Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to family mediation in Alberta in 2010. I have dedicated my time and energy to find alternative ways to solve conflict. 

My Ph.D. Dissertation was entitled Including the Voices of Children of Separation and Divorce in the Legal System. The study strongly points to the need for legal reform in order to adequately provide a way for children to be heard.

On a different personal note, I am interested in hiking, cycling and skiing and I live half-time in the Rocky Mountains. I have dedicated the past 7 years to volunteering my time to raise money for a small cambodian community and I volunteer time to this village. Due to fundraising efforts a new English school has been built in the village.

Lorri A. Yasenik Dissertation