BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Judith Landau, MD, DPM, CFLE, LMFT, CIP, CAI, CRS, President, Founder of ARISE®

PRESIDENT

JLL Primary Headshot for Websites and Larger Flyers Photo Dr. Landau is a child, family, and community neuropsychiatrist, Founder and President of ARISE® Network, Linking Human Systems, and LINC Foundation. Former professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Rochester, she has devoted her career to developing Evidence-Based, Best Practice collaborative family and community resilience models. Former faculty of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Consultant to the International Trauma Studies Program at NYU and Columbia, Dr. Landau draws upon 50+ years of research and experience aimed at facilitating long-term healing for individuals, families, and communities dealing with chronic, relapsing behavioral, mental, and physical health issues and addiction. She enjoys overcoming challenging patient, family, business, forensic and community issues, and unraveling complex systems and helping people realize their inherent resilience.

Based on her resilience research, Dr. Landau with University of Rochester faculty, developed Evidence-Based, Best-Practice Transitional Family Therapy (TFT), the first integrative model of family therapy, LINC Community Resilience, ARISE® Comprehensive Care with Invitational Intervention®, a method for engaging and treating addicted individuals and their families, and LIFE, applied to reducing intimate partner violence, STDs/HIV/AIDS, and addiction in inner city and minority women. She took early retirement to apply these methods in the “real world.” She has conducted numerous country and state-wide community interventions, executive and business interventions, and a few thousand individual and family interventions.

Author and co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications and books, she has taught in numerous countries, and trained several thousand trainers, therapists, and interventionists. Her ground-breaking book, AIDS, Health and Mental Health, won the international Choice Library award. Dr. Landau has been principal investigator on research through WHO, NIDA, NIAAA, SAMHSA and EAR. She has consulted to UN, WHO, NIMH, NIDA, NIAAA, SAMHSA, CDC & P, national and international universities, and several international governments including Argentina, South Africa, Hong Kong, Hungary, Brazil, Taiwan, countries in former Yugoslavia (most recently Kosovo), and to a United States Congressional Committee on prevention of consequences of mass disaster. She serves as a consultant to WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Geneva and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Section (PTRS). Vienna. She is a frequent consultant to treatment centers, colleagues, clients, families, and family businesses around the world.

A Senior Fulbright Visiting Scholar, and Fellow of Orthopsychiatry, Association, AAMFT and NCFR, she is the recipient of AAMFT’s Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy and AFTA’s Innovative Contribution to Family Therapy. Past President of the International Family Therapy Association (IFTA) she served on numerous editorial boards, national and international association boards. She has been listed in Who’s Who in the World since 1999, in Science and Engineering since 1998, Medicine and Healthcare since 2002, and holds the 2018 Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award.

Her TEDX talk, Family Stories, Secrets and Survival, is one of the most sought-after presentations on the subjects of: family resilience, trauma, addiction, and mental health. She is also a “Sangoma” or traditional African healer. Click here for CV.

Pamela R. L. Lessing, MSLS, CAI, CRS,

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, Director of Creative Media and Travel

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Bio coming soon.

Mike Harle, MHS

DIRECTOR AT LARGE

Michael Harle is the President / CEO of Gaudenzia, Inc. which is one of the largest freestanding chemical dependency and mental health treatment and prevention programs in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. Mr. Harle began his career in 1973 as a chemical dependency counselor at Gaudenzia House Philadelphia. Shortly after, he helped develop drug and alcohol treatment programs in three state correctional institutions in Pennsylvania. He received his Master’s Degree in Human Services from Lincoln University in 1978 and holds a certificate in Non-Profit Management from Harvard University Business School.

Mr. Harle has over 40 years experience in the substance abuse/mental health system. He has served as a human service consultant to government, industry and labor organizations and implemented specialized diversified treatment programs for women and children, homeless populations, adolescents, people with HIV, criminal justice clients, as well as prevention programs for children. In his tenure at Gaudenzia, he has done extensive work with correctional populations and institutions.

As President of the Gaudenzia Foundation, a separate not for profit organization, he has supervised public and private capitated behavioral health managed care plans, the State Employee Assistance Program in Pennsylvania, and the Bethlehem Steel (now ISG, Inc.) Employee Assistance Program. The foundation also operates a Training Institute that trains over 2,300 people annually and has partnered with research and educational institutions. Mr. Harle has published research in the area of homelessness prevention and substance abuse.

He is immediate past president of Therapeutic Communities of America (TCA), a past chairman of the board and current chairman of the public policy committee of the Drug and Alcohol Services Providers Organizations of Pennsylvania (DASPOP), Chairman of the Board of the Pennsylvania Recovery Organizations Alliance (PRO-A), the past president of the PA Alliance of Drug and Alcohol Organizations and past president of the Philadelphia Alliance of Mental Health/Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Agencies.

Michael Harle has been a paid consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) on various treatment, recovery, and managed care issues. He has also been a paid consultant for the Pennsylvania Department of Health to help develop and implement client placement criteria. Mr. Harle has been a paid consultant to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as it relates to co-occurring, mental heath and substance abuse disorders.

Mr. Harle has testified before Congress as well as state and local legislative bodies relating to public policy for mental health, HIV and chemical dependency.

Gale Saler, LCPC, CRC-MAC, CAI, CIP

DIRECTOR AT LARGE

Gale Saler, LCPC, CRC-MAC, CAI, CIP, is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in the State of Maryland, is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor and Master Addiction Counselor as approved by the Commission for the Certification of Rehabilitation Counselors and the National Council of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, respectively, and is approved through the Pennsylvania Certification Board as a Certified Intervention Professional.

She received her B.A. in psychology from The American University and her Masters degree in education/rehabilitation from George Washington University in Washington D.C. Gale has worked in the addiction, mental health and rehabilitation field for over 30 years, during which time she has developed, opened and operated some of the most effective treatment and recovery programs in the region. Her experience includes working with adolescents, young adults and adults, including those who are adjudicated and/or have co-occurring mental health or behavioral issues.

Gale is a Certified Intervention Professional specializing in ARISE® invitational interventions. These interventions emphasize and build on the strength and love which exists in the family system to assist the individual to accept help and enter treatment. She brings extensive experience in assessment and treatment placement to her intervention work. She is also a national trainer and supervisor for the ARISE® model.

As a life coach, Gale has been at the forefront of modifying the model and developing a program of recovery coaching. She is dedicated to developing the necessary resources to help her clients build the foundation for a lasting recovery.

Gale is an active advocate for prevention, treatment and recovery. She served as President of the Maryland Addiction Directors Council for six years and currently serves as President Emeritus. In 2013 Gale was presented a Governor’s Citation in recognition of her advocacy on behalf of the citizens of Maryland, as well as the Excellence in Leadership Award from the State Associations for Addiction Services. Click here for CV.

ARISE® Consulting Faculty

Judith Landau, MD, DPM, CFLE, LMFT, CIP, CAI, CRS, President, Founder of ARISE®

FOUNDER

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Dr. Landau is a child, family, and community neuropsychiatrist, Founder and President of ARISE® Network, Linking Human Systems, and LINC Foundation. Former professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Rochester, she has devoted her career to developing Evidence-Based, Best Practice collaborative family and community resilience models. Former faculty of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Consultant to the International Trauma Studies Program at NYU and Columbia, Dr. Landau draws upon 50+ years of research and experience aimed at facilitating long-term healing for individuals, families, and communities dealing with chronic, relapsing behavioral, mental, and physical health issues and addiction. She enjoys overcoming challenging patient, family, business, forensic and community issues, and unraveling complex systems and helping people realize their inherent resilience.

Gale Saler, LCPC, CRC-MAC, CAI, CIP

SENIOR FACULTY

Ernest Duff

Ernest (Ernie) Duff, who is originally from Virginia, has lived and traveled all over the world. He is a Minister and a Psychologist, and is profoundly inspired by collective psychological theory and practice and the potential for healing in communities. He is a former nonprofit Executive, who has worked cross-culturally for thirty years, with refugees, asylum seekers, survivors of torture and war, innocent former prisoners of our prison system, people living with HIV, and with communities, families and individuals impacted by significant trauma and stress, like mass shootings and international/domestic terrorism. He co-founded the Safe Horizon/Solace Program for Survivors of Torture and Refugee Trauma in New York City, and created and managed the Metro Area Support for Survivors of Torture (MASST) Consortium in New York and Northern New Jersey, which became a leading community empowerment approach to healing the wounds of torture survivors living in the United States. Ernie is also a former President of the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs (NCTTP), which is the association of torture rehabilitation efforts across the United States. He moved west with his family in 2004, and now resides in Denver, Colorado. In all of his work, Ernie guides and facilitates steps toward community healing, empowerment, inclusiveness and resilience! He brings a collective, systemic understanding and expertise on how community members and the organizations/businesses, which support them, may work together, discovering and actualizing their human resilience, while solving tasks and building efficiencies.

Ernie also has considerable leadership, management history and knowledge, that he brings to the table to help organizations/businesses/government/executive staff and others in conducting strategic and operational planning, program development, fundraising, board development and recruitment, volunteer management and more. He does this part of the work, once again, through the collective lens, engaging groups with cultural humility, and challenging aspects of structural violence and dysfunction that put up barriers to success within organizations, between organizations, and those they serve. Click here for CV.

Tracey Myers-Preston

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Tracey creates the conditions for impact. Working with those facing key inflection points – including launch, change and growth – her game-changing concepts and frameworks propel vital, complex and high-stakes initiatives.

Tracey has served in executive leadership and consulting roles in the public, private and nonprofit sectors for more than two decades. A social entrepreneur at heart, she is known for using strategy, facilitation and design to yield uncommon results. Her multidisciplinary approach to strategic design replaces the failure and frustration that are commonplace when facing the forces of change. She is consistently recognized for ability to look at complex ecosystems and build order and understanding.

Holding to the unshakeable belief that you are only as good as the good you do, Tracey loves working with extraordinary people who are up to big things. Nothing makes her happier than making concepts real and compelling people to act.

She is a highly sought-after volunteer advocate frequently called upon to launch new efforts and build engaged and committed constituencies in her local community. Tracey earned a BS with a double major in political science and mass communications and a MA in Liberal Arts with a focus on political advocacy and strategic communication from Towson University. Click here for CV.

Mona Mittal

Mona Mittal is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy from Texas Tech University and a Masters in Clinical Investigation from the University of Rochester. As a clinical researcher Dr. Mittal is engaged in prevention and intervention research aimed at improving health outcomes of women with experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV). Her research interests include physical, emotional, and sexual health of women with a specific focus on psychological trauma, interruption of the intergenerational cycle of violence, and physiological mechanisms linking IPV and adverse health outcomes across the lifespan. She is the recipient of a K01 Research Scientist Career Development Award funded by NIMH aimed at developing and testing an integrated HIV-IPV risk reduction intervention for women with experiences of IPV. Most recently, she has received NIH funding to extend the focus on her research to include couples. In her new project Dr. Mittal is addressing the synergistic interactions between substance use, violence and HIV/AIDS (SAVA syndemic) that have been closely linked with HIV acquisition in the African American population. Click here for CV.