May 8 from 11 am to 12 pm ET

Description

Join us for a thought-provoking fireside chat on the isolation and burnout experienced by parents and caregivers of neurodivergent children. Our host and guests will explore the cyclical nature of loneliness and share actionable strategies to foster connection and community.

Attendees will gain insights into bridging gaps in understanding and support across home, school, and recreational environments. The discussion will highlight ways families can advocate for more inclusive educational practices and the role of community programs in creating truly welcoming spaces.

This session empowers participants with resources and strategies to build allyship, strengthen support networks, and promote a culture of inclusion. Together, let’s create a more connected and supportive community!

Learning Objectives

• Explore the feelings of isolation and burnout experienced by parents and caregivers of neurodivergent children, including their cyclical nature, and develop strategies to address them.

• Identify common gaps in understanding and support across home, school, and community programs to foster a holistic view of neurodivergent children’s experiences.

• Advocate for more inclusive educational and community practices by gaining insights and strategies to support neurodiverse families.

• Improve communication between parents, caregivers, schools, and community programs to bridge gaps in support without increasing burnout.

• Strengthen collaboration among families, schools, and recreational programs to create a more inclusive and supportive community.

About Jacalyn Lee (she/her)

Jacalyn Lee is an advocate for neurodiversity and inclusion, drawing from her personal journey as a mother to a child with an ultra-rare genetic condition called DEAF1 Associated Neurodevelopmental Disorder (DAND). After her daughter’s DAND diagnosis, Lee became credentialed as a Non-Attorney Special Education Advocate and launched The Atypical Advocate, a Substack newsletter that shares the complexities of raising a neurodivergent child.

Lee believes in the power of storytelling to drive awareness, inclusion, and systemic change. It is through her writing that Lee aims to provide practical resources, community, and emotional support for parents, while fostering greater understanding and empathy for neurodivergent families and their atypical families.

In addition to her advocacy work, Lee has more than 20 years of experience in architecting communications strategy for iconic global and startup brands in the consumer tech, media, ecommerce, and wellness industries, including Equinox Media, The Knot, Care.com, and Gopuff. Her professional background has honed her ability to build meaningful connections and amplify important messages—skills she now channels into her mission to champion neurodiversity.

Jacalyn Lee lives in New York with her husband and three children.

About Tiffany Hammond (she/her)

Tiffany Hammond is an Autistic author and advocate based in Texas, where she lives with her family. With a Master's in Psychology focusing on childhood development, she uses her expertise and personal experience to inform her work. As a #1 New York Times bestselling author, she tells stories that raise awareness about the lives of individuals with autism, highlighting the depth and complexity of their experiences. With a focus on intersectionality and nuance, Tiffany advocates for a more inclusive and accurate understanding of neurodivergent lives, particularly through the lens of family dynamics. She is also a proud mother to two children with autism, and her work is driven by a commitment to empowering others in the neurodivergent community.

About Jessica Mingus (she/her)

Jessica Mingus, MSW, is a neurodivergent mom, advocate, social worker, and organizational culture-builder. She has twenty years of experience in capacity-building, staffing, and sustaining mission-driven organizations committed to social justice, higher education, and inner/collective well-being. Her work is all about building and sustaining systems of collective care, with a focus on reaching people inside big systems. Jessica is the proud co-founder of Care Lab Collective—a peer-driven digital refuge offering caregivers of neurodivergent and disabled kids support and resources to navigate a world that is not designed for their families.

Jessica founded a thriving community group, the SOMA Peer Support and Action Network for IEP Families in 2022--the prototype and guiding inspiration for Care Lab Collective—to fill the critical gaps in her parenting journey and home community.

Jessica is a Garrison Institute Fellow, selected to be part of an incubator for emerging contemplative leaders committed to collective healing and generative action. With Garrison’s support, Jessica has developed a contemplative framework for caregiving children with complex needs and marginalized identities, and is writing a companion book, Healing-Centered Parenting.

Her research and career have been committed to building and fighting for care spaces for Black and brown young people inside complex NYC systems. She has spent years as the Executive Director of non-profits dedicated to making mindfulness-based healing practices accessible to all, and the programs she created have reached thousands of young people, caregivers, educators, and human services professionals. She is trained as a social worker (Silberman School of Social Work) and a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher (Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at UMass Medical School).

She is currently writing her first book, "Healing-Centered Parenting," about how our collective survival and thriving are hinged on our compassion for and commitment to the wellbeing of other people's children.

May 8 from 1 pm to 2 pm ET

Description

Meltdowns can be overwhelming - for both the child experiencing them and the adults supporting them. The challenge lies not in the child themselves but in managing and holding space for intense emotions.

Join Sandhya Menon, an experienced AuDHD developmental psychologist, for an engaging and practical session that blends neuroscience, storytelling, and good old-fashioned humor. Gain a deeper understanding of why meltdowns happen, what’s going on in the nervous system, and how to provide meaningful support.

Through real-world strategies, evidence-based approaches, and practical tools, you’ll learn how to respond effectively in the moment, create supportive environments, and help children develop proactive plans to navigate big emotions with confidence and care.

Learning Objectives

• Identify key factors that contribute to meltdowns.

• Develop proactive strategies to reduce meltdown frequency.

• Understand the brain regions involved in meltdown responses to provide targeted and effective support.

• Implement evidence-based techniques to help children regulate emotions during and after a meltdown.

About Sandhya Menon (she/her)

Sandhya is a multiply neurodivergent Educational and Developmental Psycholoigst who runs Onwards and Upwards Psychology. Her organisation focuses on upskilling and empowering clinicians, parent and teachers to understand and support autistic and ADHDer individuals, with the ultimate goal of better wellbeing for these communities. Sandhya has previously authored two best-selling children’s books using a neurodiversity affirming approach, The Brain Forest and The Rainbow Brain, and speaks at both national and international conferences on autism, ADHD and cultural perspectives.

May 8 from 3 pm to 4 pm ET

Description

Led by a formally late-identified autistic speech-language pathologist, this session explores the neurodiversity paradigm and the movement’s goal of advancing equity and inclusion for neurodivergent populations.

We’ll examine how and why neurodivergent individuals experience trauma and its impact on social communication between neurotypes. Through four contemporary dimensions of social communication research, we’ll highlight barriers to inclusive connection and the importance of fostering meaningful connections across neurotypes.

The session concludes with actionable strategies to create more accessible and inclusive social spaces, promoting respectful, equitable, and authentic communication for all.

Learning Objectives

• List three barriers to inclusive connection in communities. 

• Identify four current areas of autism research that emphasize the importance of building inclusive connections between neurotypes - without expecting neurodivergent individuals to conform to neurotypical social norms.

• Identify three key factors essential for fostering inclusive connections in neurodiverse communities.

About Julie Roberts (she/her)

Julie Roberts, M.S., CCC-SLP, is an advocate and activist for the neurodiversity movement and the founder of Therapist Neurodiversity Collective. A formally late-identified Autistic Speech-Language Pathologist, Julie specializes in trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and evidence-based approaches rooted in the perspectives of the neurodiversity paradigm. Her work focuses on dismantling stigma, disrupting oppression, and prioritizing mental health and quality of life for neurodivergent populations.

Julie is the author of The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA: A Reference Guide for Therapists, Educators, & Parents and a co-author of the 2023 CARE PICORI autism research grant. She has presented professional development courses to thousands, and her articles and educational tools have reached audiences worldwide, driving meaningful change in therapy and education practices.