Parent & Caregiver Workshops
PSSE Workshop – Affirming Neurodiversity
This parent workshop, introduced the social model of neurodiversity and offered practical tools for helping children navigate socially demanding times (especially the holidays). The presentation advocated for a neurodiversity-affirming approach, emphasizing that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are natural variations rather than deficits and encouraging the creation of inclusive environments that support individual needs. It focused on shifting from a medical model (fixing the child) to a social model (adapting the environment), and highlighted the importance of self-advocacy, autonomy, and understanding within families and extended social circles. Parents were invited to reflect on expectations, learn how to prepare kids for crowded or unpredictable events, practice neurodiversity-affirming language, and plan ahead with relatives so celebrations felt safer and more inclusive, with concrete strategies like offering choice, allowing transition/break time, and using simple scripts and accommodations (quiet spaces, headphones, alternative greetings) so children could participate authentically.
PTA Workshop – Supporting Learners with ADHD
Delivered for parents and caregivers, this practical, family-centered workshop reframed ADHD through a neurodiversity lens and provided hands-on strategies families could implement immediately. We named both the strengths often seen in ADHD (creativity, persistence, deep focus on preferred topics) and the everyday challenges (organization, following multi-step directions, impulsivity).
Attendees walked away with concrete tools for home and for partnering with schools: color-coded organization systems, visual checklists and timers, movement breaks and calm-corner ideas, choice-based tasks to support engagement, and age-appropriate approaches for homework and routine building. The workshop also included teacher-friendly examples (frontloading, chunked directions, multi-format instructions) so parents could better coordinate supports with classrooms. A highlight was the “My Brain” infographic activity, an easy conversation starter that helps children name their strengths and supports and builds self-advocacy.
The emphasis throughout was on simple, sustainable changes that lower daily friction and help children show up as their best selves. Resources and ready-to-use checklists were shared so families could begin trying strategies the very next day.
High School Parent Workshop – Helping Students and Families Maintain Connection
This workshop will focus on understanding and addressing school avoidance and refusal, a challenge that many families face during the adolescent years. This session will provide practical strategies and insights to help support your child's emotional and academic well-being.
Takeaways that parents take from this workshop are:
Learning about school avoidance through an attachment and community lens
Understanding how anxiety manifests in teens and underlying causes of anxiety
Discussion about healthy attachment and connections between the student, parents, and community
Learning about how anxiety reinforces school avoidance in a cyclical fashion, making it more challenging to attend school
Supporting the student with compassion and structure
Discussion around gradual exposure to support school attendance
Caring for Families & Self: Fostering Resiliency
This workshop offers a practical, trauma-informed approach for anyone who supports children and families through loss, community stressors, or vicarious trauma. The session opens with a discussion of what counts as loss and trauma exposure (individual “Big T” and “Little T,” collective trauma, and vicarious trauma) and reviews common signs that caregivers and professionals may notice in themselves and others (e.g., hypervigilance, chronic exhaustion, diminished creativity, dissociation, difficulty listening). From there the presenters define resilience and explore both individual and community pathways to healing: attachment, social support, reframing traumatic memory, and cultivating “vicarious resiliency”, the strength we witness in those we help. The workshop frames caring for families around simple but powerful actions: validate, be present and grounded, ask “What can be helpful?”, notice existing sources of resiliency, and share resources.
This workshop focused on caregiver self-care and prevention of burnout. Attendees practice an experiential Tree of Life activity and take away a menu of self-care tools (play, creative art, nature, bodywork, sleep, movement, limiting device/news exposure). Practical strategies to build resiliency are offered (peer support, boundaries, resourcing techniques, bilateral stimulation/EMDR tools, ego-strengthening, 5-sense grounding). The session closes with reflection prompts and concrete next steps so participants leave with both personal and professional tools to sustain their work.
