Dr. Ellenhorn is a pioneer and leader in the development and promotion of community integration services, types of care that serve and empower individuals diagnosed with psychiatric and/or addiction issues while they remain in their own communities and outside institutional settings.

Trained as a sociologist, psychotherapist and social worker, he created the first fully operating intensive hospital diversion and wrap-around program in Massachusetts. Ellenhorn later created and led one of the first public Programs for Assertive Community Treatment teams in the state. In 2022, Ellenhorn co-founded CARDEA, a psychedelics based practice that assists those who seek recovery from deep and entrenched psychological anguish, from behaviors that are out of control, as well as those who want a more awakened life and expanded sense of existence.

Dr. Ellenhorn has authored three books on human behavior. Parasuicidality and Paradox: Breaking Through the Medical Model addresses psychiatric hospital recidivism and techniques for diverting hospital use. It was published by Springer Publishing in 2007. His most recent book, How We Change (and the Ten Reasons Why We Don’t), takes a deep dive into the dynamics that influence all human change. Published by Harper Collins, and in seven different languages, How We Change was released in May of 2020. Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life celebrates our inherent “sacred originality” and establishes a new framework for self-reliance. It was published in 2022. He has authored numerous articles, gives talks and seminars throughout the country, and provides consultation to mental health agencies, psychiatric hospitals and addiction programs.

Dr. Ellenhorn is the founder of the Shifting The Paradigm conferences, a bi‑annual series that addresses humanistic and empowering changes in behavioral healthcare. He is the executive producer of the film, Recovering Addiction: A Public Health Rescue Mission, a documentary on new, less‑oppressive means for understanding problematic substance use and other distressing habits.

Dr. Ellenhorn is the first person to receive a joint Ph.D. from Brandeis University’s prestigious Florence Heller School for Social Welfare Policy and Management and the Department of Sociology.

Zoi is a graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Northeastern University, where he was a Graduate Research fellow. Zoi’s 13 years of public health service span participation in the first Boston Teen Health Report, graduate school public health research and working at a community-based substance abuse outpatient center in Boston. Zoi has been trained in and has facilitated many evidence-based approaches to group work, and was a member of the team that developed groups for dual-diagnosed men funded by federal grants given to the Bureau of Addictions Prevention/Treatment and Recovery Support Services, a bureau of the Boston Public Health Commission. He has worked with clients in diverse settings, from homeless shelters and correctional facilities to community clinics and hospitals, in both individual and group settings. Zoi is trained in psychological first aid and as a psychiatric crisis clinician. His recent clinical interest lies in mind-body connections and using physical exercise to combat impulse control issues.

Daliah Heller is a public-health leader who has worked for three decades to mount a humane health-based response to drug use via occupying roles in community, government and philanthropy. She is currently vice president of drug-use initiatives at Vital Strategies, a leading global public-health organization with offices in New York City and around the globe, and also teaches at New York University’s School of Global Public Health in New York City.

Focused on the active involvement of people who use drugs in all aspects of the policies and programs ostensibly developed in their interests, Christopher B.R. Smith’s long-standing research agenda is rooted in harm reduction and critical drug studies. Most recently, his work interrogates the “place” of substance-use education in interprofessional health curriculum, the efficacy of commercial kits designed to detect substances most commonly employed in drug-facilitated sexual assault, and the role of autonomous groups and/or networks established by, and for, people who use drugs in the reduction of drug-related harm and enhancement of drug-related education, research and policy. Having worked in the United States, Australia and at various institutions across Canada, Christopher is currently based at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Newfoundland.