Christiana Bratiotis is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she teaches social work practice classes in the master’s programs and supervises social work doctoral students. She pioneered work in the formation and operation of multi-disciplinary community hoarding task forces, which is highlighted in her book titled, “The Hoarding Handbook: A Guide for Human Service Professionals” published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Bratiotis had a second book published by titled “Hoarding: What Everyone Needs to Know. She is the leading global authority on implementing community-based interventions for hoarding and her current research interests center on hoarding treatment and intervention efforts in the context of affordable housing and community-based organizations.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Bratiotis has taught courses in social welfare, mental health policy and social analysis. In addition to her scholarly work, she supervises students who provide clinical treatment and she offers national and international consultation on hoarding behaviour to families and communities.

In 2017 Christiana took advantage of an opportunity to relocate to Vancouver and became an affiliated faculty with the UBC Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding where she conducts cross-disciplinary research and co-supervises clinical psychology students.

She has given more than 200 invited community lectures, keynote addresses, agency clinical trainings and academic presentations around the world. In 2011, Christiana developed the HOMES Multi-disciplinary Hoarding Risk Assessment which has been translated into six languages and is a tool used by communities to assess risk and guide hoarding interventions. More recently in 2024 Dr. Bratiotis and her colleague Dr. Sheila Woody released thier environmental risk tool for hoarding—the HEATH.

Dr. Bratiotis earned her Bachelor of Arts in Social Psychology and Masters of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Nevada, Reno. She completed a one-year post-MSW fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine, Child Study Center. Christiana served as executive director for two non-profit organizations and has more than 25 years of experience working in and with communities to build capacity and address issues of diversity and social justice.

Her work has been highlighted by media outlets including the Canadian Press, The Vancouver Sun, the New York Times, Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune.

In 2014, Christiana received the Tenancy Assistance Program Individual Award from Boston’s MassHousing , in 2010, she was recognized with an Excellence in Teaching Award by Boston University and in 2022 The University of British Columbia recognized her with a Killam Prize for Teaching. She consistently achieves exceptionally high teaching evaluations and, in her words, “is honoured to contribute to the development of emerging social work practitioners.”

Selected Publications

Larkin, P., Sheppard, S.B., Bratiotis, C., & Woody, S.R. (2025). Stigmatizing attitudes and endorsement of coercive interventions for hoarding. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 44(1).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2024.100933

Larkin, P., Bratiotis, C., & Woody, S.R. (2024). Assessment of critical health and safety risks in homes where hoarding is prevalent. Journal of Community Health, 49, 8-16.

Lin, N., Bacala, L, Martin, S., Bratiotis, C., & Muroff, J. (2023). Hoarding disorder: The current evidence in conceptualization, intervention and evaluation. Clinical Psychiatry, 46(1), 181-196. 10.1016/j.psc.2022.10.007

Morris, R., Lin, N., & Bratiotis, C. (2022). “Oh, you learn it all in the field”: Stakeholder erspectives on knowledge and skills development of MSW students. Social Work Education, 43(6) https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2023.2208153

Bratiotis, C., Muroff, J. & Lin, N.X.Y. (2021). Hoarding disorder: Development in conceptualization,intervention, and evaluation. FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry, 19(4), 392-404.

Bratiotis, C. (2020). Community-based interventions for hoarding: Impacts on children, youth and families.
Children Australia, 45(3), 193-195. http://doi.org/10.1017/cha.2020.16

Woody, S., Lenkic, P., Bratiotis, C., Kysow, K., Luu, M, Edsell-Vetter, J., Frost, R., Lauster, N., Steketee, G., &
Tolin, D.R. (2020). How well do hoarding research samples represent cases that rise to community attention? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 26, 1-9. doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2020.103555.

Kysow, K., Bratiotis, C., Lauster, N., &Woody, S. (2020). How Can Cities Tackle Hoarding?
Examining an Intervention Program Bringing Together Fire and Health Authorities in Vancouver. Health and Social Care in the Community. doi: 10.1111/hsc.12948

Bratiotis, C., & Woody, S. (2019). What’s so complicated about hoarding: A view from the nexus of psychology and social work. Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders, 24, 2-6. doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2019.100496

Bratiotis, C., Steketee, G., Dohn, J., Calderone, Frost, R.O,, & Tolin, D.F. (2019) Should I keep it? Thoughts verbalized during a discarding task. Cognitive Therapy and Research. doi 10.1007/s10608-019-10025-y

Dozier, M. E., Bratiotis, C., Broadnax, D., Le, J., & Ayer, C. R. (2019). A description of 17 animal hoarding case files from Animal Control and the Humane Society. Psychiatry Research, 272, 365-368. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.12.127

Luu, M., Lauster, N., Bratiotis, C., Edsell-Vetter, J., & Woody, S. R. (2018). Squalor in community-referred hoarded homes. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 19, 66-71. doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2018.08.005

Bratiotis, C., Woody, S., & Lauster, N. (2018).  Coordinated community-based hoarding interventions: Evidence of case management practices. Families in Society, 99(4), 1-13. doi: 10.1177/1044389418802450. 

Kwok, N., Bratiotis, C., Luu, M., Lauster, N., Kysow, K., Woody, S.R. (2017). Examining the role of fire prevention on hoarding response teams: Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services as a case study. Fire Technology, 54, 57-73. doi: 0.1007/s10694-017-0672-0   (40% contribution; writing, data collection, student supervision)

Bratiotis, C., Davidow, J., Glossner, K. & Steketee, G. (2016). Requests for help with hoarding: Who needs what from whom? Practice Innovations, 1(1), 82-88.

Bratiotis, C. (2013). Community hoarding task forces: A comparative case study of five task forces in the United States. Health and Social Care in the Community, 21(3), 245-253.

Bratiotis, C., Steketee, G., Davidow, J., Samuels, J., Tolin, D., & Frost, R.O. (2013). Use of services by people who hoard objects.  Best Practices in Mental Health, 9(2), 39-51.

Bratiotis, C., Steketee, G., & Sorrentino, C. (2011). The hoarding handbook: A guide for human service professionals. New York: Oxford.

Areas of Scholarship: hoarding, multi-disciplinary community-based interventions

Areas of Practice: cognitive behavioural therapy, evidence-based practices, clinical treatment, community-based practices

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