Our Speakers
Thriving Families, Thriving Society 2026
Conference on Emotional Health
Prague | March 13–15, 2026
Dr. Gordon Neufeld has accumulated more than 50 years of experience as a clinical psychologist with children and youth, and those responsible for them. A foremost authority on child development, Dr. Neufeld continues to be an international speaker, a best-selling author (Hold On to Your Kids), and a leading interpreter of the developmental paradigm.
Dr. Neufeld has a widespread reputation for making sense of complex problems and for opening doors for change. While formerly involved in university teaching and private practice, he has devoted the best part of the last two decades to creating courses for parents, teachers, and helping professionals. These courses are offered primarily through the Neufeld Institute — an online educational institute and worldwide charitable organization devoted to applying developmental science to the task of raising children.
Dr. Neufeld’s life’s work has been to help adults provide the conditions for children to flourish. He is a father of five and a grandfather to eight.
Tamara Strijack is a mother, an educator, a counsellor, a consultant, a collaborator, and a creative soul. On any given day, one might find her facilitating, matchmaking, equipping, or creating. One of her greatest joys is coming alongside others on their journey — whether it be finding outlets for emotional expression, or finding one’s way as a parent, teacher, or helping professional. Her own personal playgrounds are found in writing with fountain pens, giving voice to inner experience through collage, and meandering through the woods.
She is an advocate for playful gatherings and for connection in the natural world, as well as a collector of salts, a curator of pauses, and a friend of Folklife magazine, where she takes their motto “slow the folk down” very seriously.
Eva worked for more than 50 years in schools across Canada, many of these years running an provincial organization in Quebec that provided support to teachers and schools with students exhibiting particularly problematic behavior. After retiring, she took on the coordination, oversight, and mentoring of the Neufeld Institute project aimed at helping Ukrainian orphans. Eva remains active, giving presentations, weaving together theory and practice to help those who work with children and youth become the best that they can be.
Eva likes being married, has two adult children as well as grandchildren.
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