Founder & Executive Director: Poran Poregbal, MA., RSW., RCC.

Registered Social worker and Clinical Counsellor with a passion for serving undeserved communities. Poran has BA in social sciences from Stockholm University as she lived and worked in Sweden until 1998 when she moved to Canada. She received her Master degree in clinical counselling in 2009 from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. She studied in the filed of Anthropology while for several years she was a research assistant and did filed interviews. In addition to her academic degrees, Poran managed to earn several prestigious licenses such as Certified Educator license by Canadian Red Cross; Respect ED program in 2005. Poran has served her communities through years of volunteer work with Police based Victim Services (WVPD 2000-2005) and Canadian Red Cross (2004-2006). From 2004- 2010, Poran served victims of crime by working for the BC Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse. Since January 2011 she is working as a therapist for Male Survivors. Poran’s background and specialized training in vocational rehabilitation, chronic disease treatment, mediation, negotiation, conflict resolution,child protection and victim support are only adding to her work as a therapist. Poran has years of professional studies, Scholarly work, and family education while she is a believer that use of mindfullness techniques, Psycho -Education and community work, therapeutic relationship are important tools in assisting her clients. Poran supervises the day to day work of staff and volunteers while using her leadership skills for Iranian Educators Society, she does liaison and build alliance with all interested agencies.

Board Members:

Treasurer: Azadeh Alimadad, PHD Candidate & Research Associate in the Faculty of Health Science, SFU.
Fundraiser: Fariba Khoddami, Doctorate in Literature.
Secretary: Hamid Golfar: Fund raiser, Technical Support.
Fundraiser & Membership: Ms. Parvin Hakiman.
Researcher & Fund raiser: Vahid Dabbaghian, PHD, Adjunct Professor, SFU.

Our Staff:

Ali Khoddami ,M.A.,RCC., Registered Clinical counsellor, Teaching experience at the Allameh University, Tehran, done research in the field of Clinical Psychology (Demographic Schizophrenia, Depression in Sea, Children of parents with leprosy). Ali works with dual diagnosis and addiction in his daily work. Ali is developing, running, facilitating seminars and workshops for the society, while he is evaluating programs, writing course outlines, and offering clinical supervision to the staff.

Afsoun Golchin, with a B. A.in clinical psychology and M.A. in Educational Psychology offers individual counselling, outreach, family support while she facilitates psycho-educational groups. Afsoun has a broad experience in the field of community social service work and active in developing policies, standards and procedure manuals according to the Code of Ethics. Afsoun is a person centred counsellor while she utilizes some techniques from cognitive behaviour therapy, narrative, and solution focused therapy.

Farangis Hassaninejad, M.A., RCC. Registered Clinical Counsellor. Fari offers individual counselling to our clients while she works as a early childhood- trauma and attachment clinician for other organizations. She is Organizing and running our Adlerian-based Step-parenting workshops, developing best practices for offering our professional assistance to parents.

Golnoosh Hakiman, Currently pursuing her MA in Clinical Counselling, BA in Sociology, Parenting Support, B.A., Triple Parenting Program, works as a clinical supervisor in her daily job. Golnoosh brings in years of professional work in dealing with family and community support.

Minoo Habibi, BA., Counselling Diploma, registered as a Professional counselling Candidate, she is active in offering emotional support and brief counselling to individuals while running workshops and programs for our society.

Mahboubeh Sayyad, BA in Psychology, Settlement Worker for Farsi-speaking community at ISS of BC (Immigrant Services Society of BC). She works with immigrants and refugees in Vancouver regarding their settlement needs. Mahboubeh is our “Youth Volunteer Relation Coordinator” since January 2011 and she helps our Society and volunteers to develop / work for the Youth Support Program.

Roja Bagheri, MA in clinical Counselling, from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. Roja is a sexual health educator and within the society, she manages to establish report with youth who are at risk or would benefit from one to one support. She works as a Youth Counsellor and Youth Support Group Facilitator. She researched the influence of acculturation on Iranian immigrant woman’s sexuality in Canada.

Team of Youth Support Program Facilitators:

Farokh Farhadi, BA from York University in Toronto. Currently he is working to earn his MA in Clinical Counselling, while co-facilitating our youth support club.

Golnar Vaziri, BA in Psychology, and Early Childhood Care & Education Certificate from Capilano University in 2007. Golnar co-facilitates youth support groups for our society.

Mehrdad Talakar, MA of Arts in General Psychology, offers individual counselling and anger management programs.

Bahareh Shahabi, Master of Arts in ESL, Provincial Instructor’s Diploma, Youth support group facilitator.

Legal Advocacy Support:

Raha Seyed Ali LLB, LLM, Masters degree in Law at the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law. With a law degree from Iran, She has also completed a one-year program in consulting psychology to further prepare her-self for social work.

Professional Members:

Habib Hadianfard, PhD in Psychology, RCC.

Sholeh Livarjani, PhD. RCC, Facilitator and parent educator.

Azar Ziamanesh, MA, Program support.

Negar Sarram, BA, Workshop support.

Kiumarz Sheikhi, Workshop support.

Saeed Poursaeed, Doctorate in psychology.

Previous Community Practicum Students who were pursuing MA in Clinical Counselling:

Marjan Moaref: offered great work in developing our Youth Volunteer Manual,

Farokh Fahadi: Offered great support in developing Youth Support Club and running the program over a year.

Shiva Tehrani: Offered great support in developing ideas for youth support club and running the program for one semester.

Thanks to our Child-minding volunteers:
Sara Khoddami, Student.
Ghazal Kazemnia, Student.
Harmene Dhillon, Student.
Parmida Atashzay, Student.