Christina Tortorelli

Christina Tortorelli is an Associate Professor and Academic Director in the Faculty of Child Studies and Social Work at Mount Royal University. She holds a Master of Arts in Counseling from Gonzaga University and is a doctoral candidate in Social Work at the University of Calgary. Her expertise spans child welfare practice, trauma, mental health, and interdisciplinary collaboration. She focuses on foster care systems, caregiver experiences, and neurodevelopmental disorders in children in government care.

Dr. Tortorelli’s research emphasizes practitioner well-being in child intervention, legislative advocacy, and innovative teaching methods like simulation-based learning. She contributes to policy reforms and has published on FASD impacts, narrative analysis for children in care, and Indigenous youth transitioning out of foster systems.

Her community roles include Board Chair of the MRU Childcare Center and Quality Improvement Committee Chair at Woods Homes. She has been recognized by the RELX SDG Resource Centre for her 2023 work on children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Her teaching priorities include clinical skill development, child welfare legislation, and mental health/addiction interventions. She collaborates across sectors to strengthen social work practice through evidence-based approaches.