William Saltzman

Dr. William Saltzman is a Professor in the Department of Advanced Studies in Education and Counseling at the College of Education, California State University, Long Beach. He is also Associate Director of the Nathanson Family Resilience Center at the UCLA Semel Institute and has been affiliated with the UCLA Child and Family Trauma Psychiatry Program since 1996. His work bridges academia, clinical practice, and large-scale public mental health initiatives.

Dr. Saltzman's research focuses on child and family trauma, resilience, and evidence-based interventions. Key areas include:

• Trauma and grief in military families
• Family-centered prevention programs
• School-based mental health for war-exposed youth
• Narrative and systemic approaches to resilience
• Implementation of trauma-informed care across systems

His recent publications highlight the development and evaluation of the FOCUS Family Resilience Enhancement Program and Trauma-Grief Component Therapy for Adolescents (TGCT-A), with applications in military, school, and disaster-affected communities. These works reflect a strong emphasis on family systems, preventive intervention, and scalable mental health models.

Scientific contributions and leadership:

• Co-Principal Investigator on SAMHSA/NCTSN grants for national dissemination of evidence-based programs
• Director of FOCUS program implementation in LA County DMH and LAUSD
• Chair of multiple MFT Master’s thesis projects annually
• Editor of a special issue in Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review

Dr. Saltzman advises graduate students in trauma, family therapy, and school mental health. He is actively involved in grant-funded research and program dissemination, with current projects expanding FOCUS into public education and county mental health systems. He teaches courses in trauma and grief counseling, couples therapy, and clinical interviewing, and supervises practica in the MFT program.

He is a practicing clinician and contributes to national policy and training through presentations at major conferences such as the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. His work is supported by federal and state grants and has reached hundreds of thousands of military family members across 21 U.S. installations.