American Family Therapy Academy

Hinda Winawer, MSW, LCSW  is co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Family, Community, & Social Justice, Inc., which employs, clinically supervises and trains counselors to provide free, culturally humble collaborative family systems therapy through its Context-Centered Family Systems Counseling (CFSC) approach.  The Center serves approximately 1200 economically disadvantaged children and families who are unlikely to be able to access quality care.  A countering racism organization (trained by the People's Institute) the Center is committed to multiple dimensions of diversity of at all levels including trustees, staff, faculty, and administration.   The Center's Family Empowerment Program Model has been developed for the state of New Jersey since 1994.  A member of an Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ) Action Network the Center has begun to adapt its approach to healthcare settings in collaboration with the Billings Clinic and with Cabin Creek Health Care Systems, West Virginia.

Hinda Winawer is long-term faculty of the Ackerman Institute for the Family, where she was a founding member of the Ackerman Institute Alcohol, Drugs and the Family Project. On the Family Process Editorial Advisory Board, she is former Adjunct Faculty, Rutgers University Graduate School of Social Work and a member of the National Association of Social Workers, the Association for Women in Psychology, the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association and Fellow in the American Orthopsychiatric Association, as well as faculty, Multicultural Family Institute Culture Conference.  She has taught and presented in academic and clinical settings in the US, Europe, China and Latin America and has authored chapters and articles addressing clinical training as well as social justice.

Within AFTA: Charter Member, Policy Committee member and Chair, Program Chair, Racial Domination and Privilege Interest Group Convener, Publications Committee, Monograph contributor, Plenary Presenter, and Regional Meetings and Fundraiser host. Hinda Winawer was honored to be the 2012 co-recipient of AFTA's Distinguished Contribution to Social Justice Award.

POSITION STATEMENT:  AFTA is a unique organization.  I am privileged to preside with the dedicated Executive Committee and Board of Directors, during an exciting period of transition for our organization. We have moved to an Executive Director model and are developing short and long-term strategic plans that will optimize our organizational growth and management while preserving a commitment to clinical excellence and collegiality within a social justice framework

As charter member, I have a multi-generational view: mentored by founders I have been gratified to co-present with and sponsor my students for membership.  AFTA was begun by a collegial group of outliers in psychiatry and mainstream mental health and has repeatedly reinvented itself.  We have retained our edge; it has moved forward intellectually and collegially toward increasingly complex, inclusive conversation. We have embraced the interdependence of the clinical, research and teaching dimensions of family therapy within the broader social context.  Building upon the creative innovations of the past, together we will ensure growth and financial viability, further incorporate our use of technology and actively reach out to increase involvement for all members, in search of our outliers in the next generations.