Leora Wolf-Prusan is the Director of Partnerships & Teaching at the Center for Applied Research Solutions.  Her work includes serving as the School Mental Health Lead for the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, a project of SAMHSA that provides no-cost professional development to support the school mental health workforce in the Pacific Islands, Hawaii, California, Nevada & Arizona. She formerly served as the field director for a SAMHSA Now is the Time Initiative, ReCAST (Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma), which involves providing support to the 10 grantee cities and counties as they build city-based resiliency plans to respond to civil unrest due to community-based trauma. In addition to these national grants, she provides consulting and training for numerous other clients around issues related to school climate and positive youth development, educator mental health & wellness, and trauma-informed approaches to education. 

Operating through a framework in which public health, social work, and education intersect, her research examines how teachers cognitively appraise the gang/gun-related deaths of students, what factors contribute to teachers building resiliency, and what supports teachers need from the school system in the event of a student homicide or other traumas. Prior to joining CARS, Wolf-Prusan served as a school climate specialist for WestEd’s Health & Human Development program as well as an educator and school site leadership coach in a variety of education settings, primarily focusing on college and career-going culture in urban high school contexts. She is a well-received trainer, facilitator, public speaker and educator.



She received a BA in international relations and a BA in Spanish with a minor in Social & Ethnic Relations from the University of California, Davis; a teaching credential from