AASR Live

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 cultur...

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 Au...

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, Resilien...

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 tra...

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 addit...

Please join us for “Shifting from Retribution to Repair: A Discussion with Margaret Thorsborne.” Margaret Thorsborne is an author, trainer, and facilitator of Restorative Practice with a background in education and counselling. She is a pioneer of Restorative Practice in schools in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-to-late 1990s, and in the UK in the early 2000s. She has since trained restorative practitioners and change makers in education, workplaces, community, police, and justice secto...

Please join us for “Creating a Neurodiversity-Affirming Classroom: An Interview with Kara Dymond About Her New Book." Kara Dymond, OCT, PhD, is a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD advocate, teacher, author, researcher, and award-winning university lecturer. Kara teaches autistic elementary students who inspired her books, Creating a Neurodiversity-Affirming Classroom (Jessica Kingsley, 2025) and The Autism Lens (Pembroke, 2020). Kara earned the 2024 Award for Excellence in Initial Teacher Educ...

Please join us for “A Data-Driven Analysis of Why Black Students and Students with Disabilities are Arrested Disproportionately in Maryland Public Schools” with Tamara Ward. Tamara Ward is a 2023 NABJ Pew Youth Justice Fellow. A MDDC Press Association award-winning multi-platform journalist, she is also an accomplished communications professional with over 20 years of experience in various communications disciplines, including journalism, media relations, crisis communications, marketing, soc...

Please join us for 5 Things Every Parent of Neurodivergent Kids Needs to Know with Polina Shkadron. Polina is a trauma-informed speech-language pathologist, family communication and feeding expert who specializes in autism and ADHD. She uses play to engage with each child’s unique perspective of the world. She earned her Master of Arts degree in Speech-Language Pathology from CUNY Queens College, where she was an adjunct lecturer for seven years. She also has a Master of Science degree in Nut...

Please join us for “Diving into the NeuroRelational Framework: An Interview with Connie Lillas.” Connie Lillas, Founder and Executive Director of the NeuroRelational Framework (NRF) Institute Research to Resilience (www.NRFcare.org), co-authored the NeuroRelational Framework textbook and later authored the NRF 3 Steps to Resilience Foundations Manual. She oversees the NRF Institute’s ongoing research, focusing on understanding toxic stress across all ages and cultural backgrounds. The NRF Ins...

Please join us for “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are Still Important in Education: An Interview with Nicole Keler.” Nicole Keler is a passionate special education leader with nine years of experience working in the public charter school system across Washington, D.C. She is currently a Specialist on the School Equity and Effectiveness team at the D.C. Public Charter School Board. However, she started in the education system as a special education teacher, then transitioned to working as a...

Please join us for “A Parent’s Journey: From ABA to a Better Way” with Chantelle Hyde. When I think back to about five years ago now, around the time that I first learned of my daughter’s traumatic seclusion incident at school from another parent, I was in a state of shock. After running into one frustrating and upsetting experience after another with the school and district, and even in reviewing provincial education policies, the only thing that I could think to do was to search for t...

Please join us for “The Journey Towards Neuroscience-Aligned Education” with Katie Pagnotta, Ellen Surprenant, and Sam Chadwick. Katie Pagnotta is a licensed clinical mental health counselor, functional success educational consultant, parent coach, and author. She is also the creator of the Brain- and Body-Aligned Responsive Systems (BBARS) of Excellence framework. She guides educators, administrators, and school staff in strengths-based approaches that leverage the human design and empower t...

Please join us for “Lessons in Listening with Yeiter.” Yeiter has 50 years of personal commitment to specifically supporting people who live in a status he names a “reputation for challenging behavior”. He draws on a rich personal history. His time in the company of people defined by a story of challenging behavior begins in an unreformed back ward in 1971 and continues through an attempt to reform the institution by implementing behavior analytic treatments, the move into local group homes a...

Please join us for “Pathological Demand Avoidance: Born Outside the System” with Sandra McConnell. Sandra McConnell, who is sometimes known as the PDA Mama Bear, is an instructor, speaker, blogger, and parent coach. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology, and two graduate certificates in neurodiversity and learning differences. And her 13-year-old son is Pathologically Demand Avoidant, or PDA, an unofficial autism profile characterized by an intense and persistent anxiety...