Dr. Ramona Alaggia is a Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and is affiliated with the Women and Gender Studies Institute. She is currently the Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Chair in Child and Family and the former Factor-Inwentash Chair in Children's Mental Health.

Her broad area of interest is in trauma and resilience across the life course. Specifically, her research focuses on gender and violence; child sexual abuse disclosures and mental health effects; intimate partner violence and structural barriers; and promoting ways to foster resilience processes in children, youth, and adults exposed to violence.

Ramona is the Director of her ThRIve incubation laboratory* for child and youth trauma where researchers, practitioners, interns, students and community partners work together in a community hub. This work is dedicated to compiling and sharing data from relevant fields to collectively work together to create discussion forums, identify best practices, and develop knowledge mobiization materials for easy access to all stakeholders and for the betterment of children and their well-being. She works closely with the Canadain Consortuim of Child and Youth Trauma (co-director SSHRC Partnership Grant) and is  on the scientific organizing committeefor the Annual Symposium.

*CFI/ORF/OIF funded 

In the local community, Ramona has led research and evaluation projects on the well-being of children, youth, and their families. She supports prevention and intervention programs and helps develop innovative models of service to enhance children's mental health. Internationally, she has provided training in the UK and Ireland on trauma and resilience-informed approaches to mental health. Her international presentations have been heard in Italy, Ireland, Germany, and Scotland. 

Ramona's recent research successes include securing an SSHRC Insight Grant on 'Ripple Effects: The impact of the #MeToo movement on sexual violence disclosures in Canada'. She is in partnership with the University of Edinburgh where she works in the development and evaluation of Scotland's first child advocacy centre based on the European Barnahus model aptly named the Bairn's Hoose House of Healing. Ramona works on an international team for systems transformation in deliviring services to abused and exploited children from a child's right persepctive. She recently held a grant from the Public Health Agency of Canada on studying a school based Gender-Based Violence Prevention Program called PEP Talk.