Professor honored for work toward social justice
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Pilar Hernández-Wolfe, associate professor of counseling and director of the Lewis & Clark Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy Program, recently received the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) award for distinguished contributions to social justice.
The AFTA award recognizes outstanding work to advance the quality of life or address injustices affecting people of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds.
“I am devoted to healing the wounds of social and historical traumatic stress and fostering resilience,” Hernández-Wolfe said. “This award honors an ongoing commitment to training culturally responsive and globally informed practitioners to serve the unique needs of diverse communities, both locally and internationally.”
Hernández-Wolfe has extensive experience working with individuals, couples, and families in outpatient clinics and private practice. She has also worked with refugees and survivors of torture in San Diego and with displaced populations in Colombia, her native country. As a consultant, trainer, and presenter, she has collaborated with organizations in the U.S., Colombia, and Mexico in the areas of clinical supervision, traumatic stress, resilience, organizational diversity and equity, and contextually responsive family therapy.
Her current projects include examining Latin American approaches to decolonization and historical trauma, resilience and vicarious resilience, privilege in family therapy education, and piloting the Cultural Equity Assessment System. She is also the author of A Borderlands View of Latinos, Latin Americans, and Decolonization: Rethinking Mental Health.
