Faculty & Staff

Peter’s teaching focuses on assessment issues in social work, including families, as well as child and adolescent mental health. He has served in a variety of administrative positions at MRU including practicum field director and program coordinator. He is a chair of the university’s Academic Program and Curriculum Committee as well as a councilor on General Faculties Council and a member of its Executive Committee. He is a member of the Program Planning Committee of the 9th International Conference of Adolescents and Adults with FASD to be held in Seattle, WA. In April 2024. He is a member of the Planning Committee and Editorial Committee of the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium. He serves as an expert witness in child protection. Peter uses the pronouns he/him. 

Areas of Instruction

• Child and Adolescent Mental Health
• Child Intervention
• Assessment in Social Work
• Interpersonal Violence 
• Mental Health and Addictions

Areas of Scholarship

• Assessment of parents within child protection systems including systemic bias issues
• Practice errors in child protection linked to serious injury and death
• Indigenous children and family intersection with child protection
• Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Stigma and implications for front line practice
• Implementation of Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action within the practice of social work

Selected Publications

Choate, P. (2026) Parenting Capacity Assessment in Child Welfare.  Springer Press.

Hedges, J., Choate, P., Bennett, M., Fuchs, D., & Alberta, J. (Eds).  (2026)  Parity in child welfare: Truth, reconciliation, and the future of social work. Regina, SK: University of Regina Press.

Choate, P., Tortorelli, C. & Hedges, (2026) J. Assessment across Clinical Realities: Applications for Social Work.  Fernwood Press.

Badry, D., Choate, P., Williams, R., Iahtail, B., & Fuchs, D. (2026) The Deaths and Serious Injuries of Children and Youth with FASD Involved with the Child Welfare System in Publicly Reported in Canada. Child Protection and Practice, In review. 

Choate, P., Tortorelli, C. & Hedges, J. (2026).  Assessment Is the Noun, Critical Thinking Is the Verb. In, P. Choate, C. Tortorelli & J. Hedges (Eds).   Assessment across Clinical Realities: Applications for Social Work.  Fernwood Press.

Bear Chief, R. & Choate, P. (2026).  Bringing an Indigenous Lens to Assessment:  The Example of Ani to Pisi.  In, P. Choate, C. Tortorelli & J. Hedges (Eds).   Assessment across Clinical Realities: Applications for Social Work.  Fernwood Press.

Choate, P. (2026) Assessment goes to court.  In, P. Choate, C. Tortorelli & J. Hedges (Eds).   Assessment across Clinical Realities: Applications for Social Work.  Fernwood Press. 

Choate, P. (2026). Preserving Indigenous children rights to connection within culture: Where do the priorities lie? In, Hedges, J., Choate, P., Bennett, M., Fuchs, D., & Alberta, J. (Eds).   Parity in child welfare: Truth, reconciliation, and the future of social work. Regina, SK: University of Regina Press.

Choate, P. & Lindstrom, G. (2026)  Attachment and human development: challenging Western perspectives, In, C. Fouché & E, Keddell (Eds). Elgar encyclopedia of social work (pp. 426-8). Elgar.

Harding, K., Flannigan, K., Morrison, K., Choate, P., McMorris, C. & Badry, D. (2026)  “A lot of people don’t wanna die, they just don’t wanna live”: Lived experiences of mental health, suicidality, and wellbeing among young adults with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Child Protection and Practice. In review.

Gill T., Choate P., & Orton SM. (2026). Understanding Epigenetics and Its Role in Trauma Transmission: Primer and Insights for Social Work. Social Sciences. 15(2):59. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci15020059

Choate, P.W., Tortorelli, C., Dhaliwal, P., Kaur, S. (2025). Revising Western Perspectives on Social Work Education. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_534-1 

Choate, P. W. (2025). Indigenous child protection in Canada: the insanity of doing it the same way. In I. Hyslop & B. Pease (Eds). Abolition in Social Work and Human Services Visions, Possibilities and Challenges (pp. 128–141). Policy Press.

Warthe, G., Carter-Snell, C. & Choate, P. (2025).  Dating Violence on Post Secondary Campuses: Men’s Experiences. Social Sciences 14(9), 544. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14090544

Bear Chief, R. & Choate, P.  (2025) Bringing an Indigenous lens to assessment – the example of Ani to Pisi. In, P. Choate, C. Tortorelli & J. Hedges (Eds). Assessment across Clinical Realities: Applications for Social Work.  Fernwood Press. In Press. 

Choate, P. Assessment goes to court. In, P. Choate, C. Tortorelli & J. Hedges (Eds). (2025)   Assessment across Clinical Realities: Applications for Social Work.  Fernwood Press. In Press.

Choate, P. (2025)   Social Work: Its place in determining the worthy and the unworthy? A reflection. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20661 

Elke, D., Choate, P. & Tortorelli, C. (2025). A scoping review of birth alerts: A Canadian context, The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 55, Issue 4, June 2025, Pages 1636–1656, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf014

Choate, P.  (2026)   Preserving Indigenous children rights to be within culture versus disconnected: Where do the priorities lie? Prairie Child Welfare Consortium Book.

Hargrove, E., Lutke, C.J., Griffin, K., Himmelreich, M., Mitchell, J.  Lutke, A., & Choate, P.  FASD: The living experience -considering equality v equity. Disabilities. 4(2), 332-347; https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities4020022

Choate, P., Briegel, M., Mann-Johnson, M. & Tortorelli, C. (2024), Do children matter? The politics of child protection. Align. Pp. 4-23

Tortorelli, C., Choate, P. & Badry, D. (2023) Disrupted life narratives of children in care with neurodevelopmental disabilities: Whose story is it? (Invited Book Chapter) Published https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.dnb.2023.05.006  

Choate, P. & Engstrom, S. (2023). Decolonization has thus far mostly failed – drawing from Canadian lessons. In Press. Palgrave Macmillan Handbook on Social Issues.

Orton, S., Mills, K., & Choate, P. (2023). Epigenetics of Trauma Transmission and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: What Does the Evidence Support? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20, 6706. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20176706

Badry, D., Dearman, A.H., Choate, P., Marcellus, L., Tortorelli, C. & Williams, R.(2023). FASD and child welfare. In, A.A. Abdul-Rahman & C.L. Peterenko (Eds.) Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A multidisciplinary approach. Pp. 385-404. Spring Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3- 031-32386-7_15

C. Tortorelli, D. Badry, P. Choate & K. Bagely.(2023). Ethical and social issues in FASD. In, A.A. Abdul-Rahman & C.L. Peterenko (Eds.) Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A multidisciplinary approach. Springer Nature. Pp. 363-384.

Selected Presentations

Choate, P. W., LaRochelle, T., Tortorelli, C. D., & Spicer, K. (2024). Life course solutions - not episodic approaches - in child welfare and family. Pre-Conference Law - 9th International Conference of Adolescents and Adults with FASD (Seattle, WA).

Choate, P.(2023). Assessment, Testimony, and the Place of Expert Witnesses. King’s Bench Judicial Conference, National Judicial Institute, Winnipeg, MB.

Tortorelli, C.& Choate, P. (2023).Preparing Social Work Students for Impactful Relational and Ethical Child Protection Careers. Kempe 2023 Conference – A call to action to change child welfare. Denver, CO.

Choate, P., Tortorelli, C., Borg, I & Dickens, C. (2023). Inter-professional simulation leading to excellence in social work practice. Kempe 2023 Conference – A call to action to change child welfare. Denver, CO.

Choate, P.W. & Warthe, D.G. (2023). Impact of Family Violence on Children. Judging in the First Five Years. Montreal, PQ: National Judicial Institute.

Choate, P., Bear Chief, R & Lindstrom, G. (2023). Reconsidering Maslow and the Hierarchy of Needs from an Indigenous Perspective. Canadian Association of Social Work Educators / Congress on the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Relevant Community Service

• 2019 – Ongoing Editorial Advisory Committee – British Journal of Social Work
• 2022 – Ongoing Review Editor – Frontiers in Adolescent Medicine 
• 2022 – Ongoing Member of the Editorial Team for the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium
• 2026 – Ongoing Editorial Board of Discover Social Science and Health
• 2026 – Ongoing Associate Editor – Journal of Child and Family Studies