Family Faculty/Family and Advocacy Training Director
LEND Pittsburgh
Dori Ortman brings over two decades of program management expertise and lived experience as a parent of a child with special health care needs to her work advancing family leadership in maternal and child health systems. Her career combines extensive continuing education in disability and mental health services with strategic development of evidence-informed educational resources.
Dori has created widely disseminated materials addressing inclusive education, peer interactions, and meaningful integration of lived experience partners in professional training through national conferences, academic coursework, and professional handbooks. Her co-authored publication "Fabric not Fringe" advances strategies for authentic family engagement in healthcare planning, implementation, and evaluation. She has secured multiple local and national grants supporting training and assistance for families, educational institutions, and community organizations.
As Family Faculty and Family and Advocacy Training Director at LEND Pittsburgh, affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Dori created the LEND Pitt Advocacy Academy, training family members, self-advocates, MCH professionals, and graduate students in systems-level advocacy competencies. She developed comprehensive graduate-level curriculum transforming MCH practitioners from individual service providers into strategic systems change agents, and developed an inclusive, competency-based curriculum for Family and Advocacy Trainees that parallels clinical training standards.
Dori contributes to national leadership through initiatives elevating family and caregiver lived experience as expertise, cultivating parents as change agents, and addressing ableism in pediatrics. She maintains practice as a crisis counselor and regularly consults with families while presenting at local, state, and national conferences.