Peter Choate

Peter Choate is a professor of social work at Mount Royal University, where he specializes in assessment practices, child and adolescent mental health, and simulation-based learning. He has played a leading role in developing simulation methods fo social work education, including interdisciplinary applications and child intervention scenarios featuring mock court proceedings with members of the judiciary.

Choate has been qualified as an expert witness in social work in more than 150 legal proceedings, with subspecialties in parenting capacity (including assessments related to risk, domestic violence, and addiction), fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), and cross-cultural evaluations. He served as an expert panel member for the national study Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Canada: Current Knowledge and Policy, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2025).

Recognized as Canada’s leading author in the field of parenting capacity assessments within the child welfare system, Choate’s research focuses on how systemic structures — including child protection, justice, health, and addiction services — reproduce historical and contemporary biases. His work critically examines how these systems obstruct anti-oppressive and culturally responsive practices in social work.