Please join us for “How to Assess the Hidden Meaning Behind Behaviors” with Staci Neustadt and Susan Golubock.

Staci Neustadt, CEO of Making Sense of Autism®, is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist with over 20 years of experience providing individual and group therapy, training, mentorship, and leadership. In 2019, Staci joined Susan in developing the Neuro Strengths Based Support for Autism framework. Staci is passionate about creating a paradigm shift for therapists to holistically support autistic clients and for autistic clients to feel seen and heard as they build on their strengths and contribute their gifts to their community.

Susan Golubock is a retired occupational therapist. She received her Masters degree in Occupational Therapy from Western Michigan University in 1968 and Masters of Education degree in special education technology in 1995. She was diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum in 1999. Most of her career has been spent in school-based practice. Susan has been a keynote speaker and presenter at various conferences. Susan developed the Neuro-Strengths Based Support for Autism Framework, which comes from her personal experience as an autistic individual and professional experience as an occupational therapist who worked with autistic clients. She grew up trying to “be like everyone else;” she succeeded in masking but at the cost of never developing a sense of “self,” which led to symptoms of post-traumatic stress. When she was finally diagnosed in my early 50s, I learned that there were other options for how to think and behave, which radically changed my life for the better. Susan's passion is to educate parents and professionals so the autistic individuals in their lives are understood.

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Please join us for “Assistive Technology: to Innovate and Integrate Your Future” with Sam Shepherd.

Sam Shepherd is the founder of 3DA, a nonprofit that advocates for individuals with developmental disabilities across the country. 3DA focuses on providing accessible resources on their website (3DA.org) as well as advocating at both the state and federal levels.

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Please join us for “Understanding Issues Impacting Black Neurodivergent Students” with Cheryl Poe.

Cheryl Poe is the founder and Executive Director of Advocating 4 Kids, Inc., a Special Education Advocacy organization that provides resources, information, and workshops to parents and professionals, with a special focus on addressing the needs of Black and Brown children with disabilities.

She is the past board president of the National Allies for Parents in Special Education NAPSE, a national parent-driven organization that works hard to increase access and quality advocacy resources for special education families from underserved populations to improve educational outcomes.

Mrs. Poe holds a Master of Arts Degree in Urban Education and Counseling. She also has completed over 15 credit hours of postgraduate hours in psychology. In June of 2004, she completed the Nation Group Psychotherapy Institute at the Washington School of Psychiatry in Washington D.C. in the study of Group Psychotherapy. Mrs. Poe completed a two-year term as the Student Outreach and Recruitment.

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Please join us for “Leading with the Heart with Jase Williams.”

Jase Williams is a TEDx Speaker who has 25 years of experience working as an educator and is the former Principal of Henry Hill School who won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award - Wellbeing - the top education award in New Zealand. Jase is a certified trainer in the Neurosequential Model in Education (NME), and he is one of the leading voices in Relational Neuroscience & Trauma Informed Practice in Education and has shared his knowledge through an equity-focused, compassionate, and indigenous lens with thousands of educators

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Please join us for “Disruption in Schools: A New Book from Ben Sacco."

Ben is an education specialist and Author of ‘Disruption in Schools: Understand me before you mark me!’. He works with schools, teachers, and principals to tackle issues like teacher burnout, retention, school culture, and student behavior. Many of his strategies to improve behavior and classroom dynamics in schools are grounded in a deep understanding of neuroscience, child development, and psychology

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Please join us for “Collaborative Curiosity and the Unstuck Protocol: The Best Way to Prevent Restraint and Seclusion Is to Not Have a Reason to Even Consider It” with Jennie DunKley. 

As a special education consultant for over 25 years, Jennie has represented hundreds of families and attended over a thousand IEP meetings. She empowers Teams to focus unwaveringly on the actual and intended “I’s” in IEP – Individual and Inclusion. She offers expertise and training in navigating the culture, process, and the functional application of special education for all audiences. She is actively engaged with national and state policy development, including service as a member of COPAA’s Government Relations and Social & Racial Equity Committees, a family representative on the Massachusetts Special Education Advisory Panel, and as a core stakeholder in Massachusetts's IEP Improvement Project. A 14-year Board Member on the Special Needs Advocacy Network (SPaN), she founded the School Fair, Same Side of the Table forum, and co-founded the Family Grant and IEP Clinic programs. In 2012, Jennie designed and coordinated the implementation of a transition program for high-cognitive, post-12th-grade students with executive functioning and social communication challenges at the Ivy Street School.

Jennie's latest work, Collaborative Curiosity and the Unstuck Protocol, represents the culmination of insights gathered in her years as a special education consultant and from her prior career in crisis management, marketing, and communications. This reimagined practice is being delivered in multiple venues to advocacy, related-service, and parent groups, and as PD for school staff.

Most importantly, she is a Special Education Surrogate and a fiercely proud parent of a young adult on the autism spectrum, her co-presenter in Collaborative Curiosity, Sam DunKley

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Please join us for “Shifting the Narrative Starts with Parent Empowerment” with Stacy Badon and Torrin Kearns.

Stacy and Torrin Co-host a podcast that seeks to dispel the myths, misconceptions, and fears around Everything Autism. Stacy Badon is an Autism Education specialist, Sensory Enrichment Therapist, and Parent Coach, with previous experience as a Speech Therapist and Early Intervention teacher for public schools. She has 20+ years of professional experience supporting families in the Autism community, as well as global experience volunteering with nonprofit organizations. Torrin Kearns is an Autistic screenwriter, blogger, and neurodiversity advocate. Each episode takes a deep-dive into a different autism-related topic in a quest to provide answers, skills, and strategies for parents, caregivers, teachers, and therapists.

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Please join us for “Your FBA Is a Fantasy: A Discussion with Doris and Rick Bowman About Their New Book.”

Bringing together their combined experience and expertise in the fields of both mental health and education, Rick and Doris Bowman, affectionately known by schools and agencies around the country as “Team Bowman”, provide speaking, training, consultation, and coaching services to both educational organization and mental health agencies on topics of Trauma-Informed Practices/Care, Resilience Practices, Neuro-Affirming Practices, and approaches for intervening with youth with chronic challenging behavior of any cause.

Having lived through the opposite ends of what they view as the “trauma spectrum” in childhood, Rick and Doris bring not only their professional expertise but their lived experience to the work that they do – Rick having grown up in the “hot family” that was marked by violence and abuse as a result of his father’s own PTSD from serving 4 years fighting in the Philippines in WWII and his mother’s mental health diagnosis of schizophrenia, and Doris in the “cold family” where she experienced invalidation of feeling and emotion altogether and the trauma of having had 9 family friends (adults and children) murdered just down the street when she was 7 years old and her family never speaking about what had happened.

Rick & Doris’s credentials include the following:
• M.A. in Clinical Psychology (Rick)
• M.S., Education / Special Education (Doris)
• Advanced Certified Trauma & Resilience Practitioner – Education® (ACTRP-E®)
• Advanced Certified Trauma & Resilience Practitioner – Clinical (ACTRP-C®)
• Certified HeartMath® and “The Coherence Advantage®” Trainer
• Certified “The Resilient Heart” HeartMath Trauma Practitioner
• Certified “Stress & Well-Being Assessment®” Provider (HeartMath Institute)
• Certified Trainer “Collaborative Problem Solving®(Think:Kids, Massachusetts General Hospital)
• K-12 licensed school administrator in the state of Oregon
• PCI Certified Parent Coach®
• Certified special educator & administrator in the state of Oregon
Between them, Rick & Doris have held roles that include:
• Therapist
• Program Director
• Clinical Consultant
• Social Emotional Academic Learning Program Teacher
• Behavior Specialist
• Principal
• Assistant Principal
• Student Services Director

Rick & Doris have been former speakers at the Attachment & Trauma Network’s Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Conferences since 2020, and are requested speakers at numerous national and state-wide administrator, educator and child-serving conferences, including special education, annual, and principal-specific conferences. They've been featured speakers at the Innovative Schools Summit's "Differently Wired" (trauma-informed) Conference, ESSDACK’s “Bridging to Resilience” Conference, Chaddock’s “Trauma-Informed Relationship-Focused Schools Conference”, and the Pacific NW Special Education & the Law Conference.

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Please join us for “Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education” with Alex Shevrin Venet.

Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches graduate teacher education at Vermont State University. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school, a community college instructor, and an after-school teacher in the upper elementary grades. Alex works with educators around the country to strengthen their trauma-informed education practices, with a focus on empowering teachers to create systemic change. She is the author of the bestselling book Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, which has been integrated into teacher education programs in several states and has been cited in education research more than 200 times. Her follow-up book, Becoming an Everyday Changemaker: Justice and Healing at School, provides teachers with the tools to implement trauma-informed practices starting where they are.

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Please join us for “Trauma, Healing, and Positive Identity with Dr. Karyn Harvey, PhD.”

Karyn Harvey has worked as a clinician in the field of intellectual disabilities for over 35 years. She has her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Maryland. She has written three books: Positive Identity Development, Trauma–Informed Behavioral Interventions, and Trauma and Healing. She has a private practice and does therapy with people with intellectual disabilities. In addition, she regularly conducts training on trauma-informed support for people with IDD, trauma-informed leadership, and trauma-informed behavioral interventions for both state and individual organizations throughout the US and Canada. She sees restraints and seclusion as both traumatizing and re-traumatizing to the recipients and is passionate about the elimination of these procedures.

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