Editorial Team
Apryl Alexander, PsyD
Editor, Cultural Adversity
Dr. Alexander is an Associate Professor at the University of Denver. She primarily teaches in the Master’s of Forensic Psychology program in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology and supervises students at the Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service and Training (Denver FIRST). She serves as Director of Denver FIRST’s Outpatient Competency Restoration Program (OCRP), which provides outpatient competency education and restoration for low-risk, court-ordered adult defendants and juveniles. She is also a Faculty Affiliate with the Scrivner Institute for Public Policy. Dr. Alexander is the Co-Founder (with Dr. Ashley Hamilton and Rachael Zafer) and former Co-Director for the University of Denver’s Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI), which provides therapeutic, educational creative arts programming to incarcerated men and women in Colorado state prisons.
Stuart Copans, MD
Editor, Child Psychiatry
Stu works as a child psychiatrist, cartoonist, papercutter, pataphysician, mail artist, writer, illustrator, and small book publisher, and has written and illustrated books published by major houses. He graduated from Harvard College, earned his medical degree at Stanford, and did his training in psychiatry and child psychiatry at NICHD, GW, UVM, and Dartmouth. Stu currently teaches child psychotherapy at Dartmouth, and evaluates and treats patients in residential care and hospital diversion programs. He was elected to membership in the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry where he is currently a member of the research committee. Stu and his wife Mary have lived in Brattleboro since 1977. They have 4 children and 10 grandchildren. Stu tries not to take himself too seriously, but according to his wife he lapses frequently. His current interests are collaborative processes, therapeutic interactions, and the therapeutic effects of humor and art.
Constance DelGiudice, EdD
Editor, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
In private practice and as an adjunct professor, Connie specializes in working with individuals suffering the negative effects of sexual abuse. Her earlier work originated as a director of the Family Safety “& Awareness Program (Sexual Abuse and a Sexual Touching Problems Program). Connie has conducted trainings for other helping professionals, developed human sexuality courses for several universities, and served on task forces surrounding child and adolescents with atypical sexual behaviors. She served on Florida’s Children’s Medical Services special projects workgroup developing guidelines for the state’s Sexual Abuse Treatment Programs, revising the SATP Handbook, and working on safety planning and reunification protocols. drconstancedelgiudice.com
Mary Falcon
Editor, Mentoring
Mary considers the New Circle Mentoring program and The New Circle magazine her two greatest accomplishments as executive director of Safer Society Foundation, a position she has held since 2014. Except for the two years she spent overseas at a US Army base teaching adult education, her entire professional career has been in book publishing, from marketing to book acquisitions and development at Random House, Harper Collins, Houghton Mifflin Company, and Safer Society Press. Although she quit New York City life 18 years ago to live in rural Vermont, her language has been known to revert to its Bronx roots when she gets riled up.
Katelen Fortunati, DSW, LCSW
Editor, Social Work
Katelen received her Master’s in Social Work from Saint Louis University and her Doctorate of Clinical Social Work from Rutgers. She also received a Certificate in Violence Prevention from Washington University of St. Louis. Her work has focused on helping others understand the ambiguous grief experienced by children with incarcerated parents and the impact of parental incarceration on parent-child attachment. Currently, she is working in Colorado disseminating this information through the public school systems and county corrections through her non-profit organization, Every Single Kid. She is also the author of the ChIPs books for children downloadable free from Safer Society Press.
Linda Metcalf, M.Ed., PhD, LMFT
Editor, Educational Settings
Linda Metcalf, M.Ed., PhD, LMFT is the Director of Graduate Counseling Programs at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas. She is a former middle school teacher and school counselor. She provides professional development to schools seeking a solution focused climate.
She is the author of eleven books including Counseling Toward Solutions (1995, 2008, Wiley, 2019, KDP), A Field Guide to the Solution Focused School (Wiley, 2008),Parenting Toward Solutions (1997, Prentice Hall), The Miracle Question, (2004, Crown House, UK) Marriage and Family Therapy: A Practice Oriented Approach (Springer) 2011, and Solution Focused Narrative Therapy (Springer) 2017.
She has presented extensively in the United States, Australia, Japan, Newfoundland, Germany, Scotland, England, Norway, Amsterdam, Singapore, UK, Canada, Thailand and more. She is Past President of both the Texas Association for Marriage and Family therapy and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. She is the creator of the Solution Focused Schools Unlimited podcast. She is currently President of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas with her husband Roger. Together, they are proud parents of three adult children, Roger Jr., Kelli and Ryan and two golden retrievers, Ranger and Ringo.
David Prescott, LICSW
Editor, Psychology and Counseling
A mental health practitioner of 36 years, David is the Editor of Safer Society Press. He is the author and editor of 20 books in the areas of understanding and improving services to at-risk clients. He is best known for his work in the areas of understanding, assessing, and treating sexual violence and trauma. David is the recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Contribution award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and the 2018 recipient of the National Adolescent Perpetration Network’s C. Henry Kempe Lifetime Achievement award. He currently trains and lectures around the world.
