Georgina Ahrens gained her Bachelor of Applied Science – Occupational Therapy from the University of Sydney, Cumberland College Australia in 1996. She has spent the last 25 years working with children diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorders and Autism Spectrum Disorders firstly in the United States and then returning to Sydney in 2003 and setting up a private practice in the North Shore. Georgina is a certified practitioner with the Interdisciplinary Council for the Development and Learning and an Assistant Faculty for Profectum to provide treatment and training in the use of the DIR® model. She has been providing this model of treatment to a range of neurodiverse children and families in her practice.

Kate Bailey is a highly qualified and specialised occupational therapist with 30 + years of experience in the field of paediatrics.

Kate graduated from UCT with a BSc degree in Occupational Therapy in 1985.  After a year of travel and working in the field of Geriatrics in Burnley General Hospital, England, Kate returned to Cape Town, South Africa where she discovered her passion for children at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, working in the areas of burns and learning disabilities.

Kate moved to Johannesburg and joined a Paediatric Private Practice, working with children with learning challenges. During this time she continued part-time studies at WITS University for another 6 years where she attained her qualification in Sensory Integration and an Adv. Dip. OT in Neurosciences and a MSc OT (1993).

In 1991 when her first daughter, Lara, was born, Kate opened a paediatric private practice in Fourways, together with her occupational therapy and physiotherapy colleagues. She specialised in working with pre-school and primary-school children with Sensory Integration Disorders, Learning Disabilities, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Syndromes, Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Delay.

With the birth of her second daughter, Jenna, in 1995, Kate discovered her deeper purpose in partnering parents and families in working with their babies, toddlers and young children. She added Neurodevelopmental Therapy to her repertoire of knowledge by doing the Basic Paediatric Course in NDT and the NDT Baby Treatment Course. This equipped her with knowledge and skills to work with babies, toddlers and young children at risk for developmental delay due to Prematurity, Syndromes, Sensory Regulatory Disorders, Sensory Integration Disorders, Neurological Disorders, Cerebral Palsy, Cortical Visual Impairment and Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

In 1997, Kate’s son, Ross, was born premature and spent a few weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This together with her passion for early intervention initiated her research and development of the Dvd series “Making Sense of My World” – completed in 1998. In this 4-part series, Kate demonstrates the milestones of development and provides parents with fun, easy-to-do activities to stimulate sensory and motor development in the first year of a baby’s life. This series, re-named “Stimulate Your Baby”, was revised and re-filmed together with Liz Senior from Clamber Club, and is now available on YouTube (Stimulate Your Baby Series - Clamber Club.

Kate believes in the importance of early intervention and the impact nurturing, loving relationships have on the development of the brain. With her commitment to empowering parents, Kate joined physiotherapist, Nicky Lasch in 1999 and together they developed the Moms and Babes Stimulation Programme. Moms and Babes Workshop is part of the Moms and Tots Franchise group owned by Petra Lombard. Kate and Nicky train the franchisees in the theory of sensory, motor, cognitive, play and emotional development in babies from 0 to 12 months. They also teach practical handling and stimulation of all the milestones, using fun activities that enhance caregiver-baby bonding. This two-day training programme equips the franchisees to run their own mother-baby workshops to support parents understand and enhance their babies development.

Kate expanded her knowledge by branching out to study intuitive and emotional healing techniques to complement her practice. She studied to be a Journey Practitioner with Brandon Bays (2004-2005) and a Bodytalk Practitioner, completing modules 1,2,3,4,6,7 (2006 – 2010).

As the mother of three children, and the grandmother of four, Kate believes that relationships play the most important role in the growth, development and emotional wellbeing of children. From 2010, Kate embarked on her DIR® Floortime journey. DIR®, developed by psychiatrists, Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder, is a relationship based approach for children with relating and communication challenges as well as those on the Autism Spectrum.  Kate has completed the following Profectum Academy courses - CL1: Professionals (2012),  CL2: Fellows (2015) and CL3: Trainers (2018) courses. Kate has tutored, co-lead and presently leads CL1 courses for Profectum Academy (New Jersey, USA), and is an Assistand Faculty member of Profectum. She also gives DIR® Introductory workshops around South Africa for Spotlight Trust, a NPO with the goal of introducing DIR® to parents, teachers, facilitators and professionals working with the growing population of children with challenges relating and communicating.

With 30 + years of experience, numerous postgraduate qualifications and a true passion for her work with children and families, Kate continually seeks to deepen her insights, knowledge and learning through sharing with other professionals by attending workshops, tutoring, lecturing and mentoring.

Barb Baldassarre is an Occupational Therapist who has worked for over 30 years in varied hospital, clinic and school-based settings. She has a private practice, BFB Therapeutics, LLC, located in the Western Suburbs of Chicago, IL Barb has focused on home-based work, supporting infants, toddlers and their families as a credentialed evaluator and provider of Early Intervention services since 2003. In addition, she provides home based services for preschool and primary school-aged children. She provides continuing education through the Illinois Early Intervention Training Program.

Barb holds a position as an Assistant Faculty Member of Profectum Foundation and is a DIR-FCD™ Expert Clinician, Tutor and Trainer. She is certified through the Neurodevelopment Treatment Association and has her SIPT Certification through Sensory Integration International. In addition, she is a Certified Yoga Instructor and has completed the Love Your Brain Yoga Training for Health Professionals. Barb brings insight from application of these complementary models to her support of children and their families and in her reflective work with students and colleagues.

Linda Cervenka is a licensed Speech Language Pathologist and works primarily with children and adolescents with autistic spectrum and related disorders utilizing DIR® and development language models. She has a private practice in Riverside, Illinois providing mentoring, teaching, case management/guidance and direct service.   Linda is also co-founder of Soaring Eagle Academy, an Illinois State Board of Education approved school serving students 5 through 21 years of age with autism and related disorders.  She serves as an Expert Clinician/Trainer at the Academy.   Linda received her Bachelor's Degree from Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, IL and her Master's Degree in Communicative Disorders from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has worked for over 35 years with children with special needs, in home based and clinic based therapeutic services and public and private schools providing consultation, training and support for children and families. Linda is a Senior Faculty member of Profectum and has presented nationally on the topic of developmental approaches to intervention for children.  Additionally, within the Academy and through private consultations, Linda helps parents/caregivers and school programs understand a developmental approach to dysregulation seeing the child’s actions as a stress response versus “behaviors” that are intentional and to avoid/escape learning.  The primary areas of support include training all stakeholders in the child’s developmental process including but not limited to the child’s language comprehension profile, recognizing and reading their subtle communicative intentions and understanding their individual sensory, affective and motor systems during a stress response. 

Caroline Ferguson-Walsh is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist and founder of BEAR Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy, based in Chicago, Illinois. Caroline is a member of the American Speech & Hearing Association (ASHA) and Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (SAC). She holds a position as a Faculty Member of Profectum Foundation and is a DIR-FCD™ Expert Clinician, Tutor and Trainer. Caroline is a presenter for the Early Intervention Training Program at the University of Illinois (2020- 2023) and is a credentialed instructor for conferences, trainings and professional certification courses through Profectum (2015-2023). She is committed to community outreach and provides local and regional trainings on supporting families of children with communication disorders. 

Caroline has worked in a multitude of settings including pediatric hospitals, early childhood facilities, schools, homes and private practice in the United States, Canada and Ireland. Her clinical focus includes providing assessments and treatment to children with developmental delays, autism and disorders of relating and communicating. Her work is supported by her training in DIR-FCD™, Hanen® and the Sequential Oral Sensory (S.O.S) Approach to Feeding. She is dedicated to coaching and supporting families to be an integral part of the clinical team.

Jennifer Hein is the occupational therapy Supervisor and DIR® model Expert Clinician at Soaring Eagle Academy. As an occupational therapist for 18 years, she has worked in private practice and the school setting specializing working with children and families using the DIRFloortime® and sensory integration theoretical models. She is SIPT certified and has completed the DIR® model certification receiving trainer status through the Interdisciplinary Council of Development and Learning and Profectum Organization. She has served in a variety of leadership roles throughout her career including supervisor of program development, lead clinical supervisor, clinical director of a private practice as well as starting her own practice. In these roles, she has focused on developing programs to support caregiver-child interactions through incorporating innovative and unique occupational therapy interventions individualized to meet the needs of families. In addition to helping parents understand the unique and individual sensory and motor profiles of his/her child, Jennifer is passionate about teaching health care professionals and has supervised and mentored numerous professionals throughout her career. She has provided direct training, supervision and coaching to professionals including occupational therapy students, occupational therapists, teachers, mental health workers, speech language pathologists, physical therapists, and paraprofessionals. In addition, she has co-taught a class in Developmental Interventions at the Erikson Institute of Chicago. She has also presented numerous presentations throughout her career around Chicago and in the Washington, DC area. She was chosen to present a poster presentation at the World Federation of Occupational Therapy in Santiago, Chile in 2010.

Michele is a licensed speech and language pathologist, who works primarily with children diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. Michele is one of three founders of Soaring Eagle Academy, a school for children with special needs that utilizes developmental language intervention and the DIR® model. In addition, she has a private practice in the western suburbs of Chicago. Michele has a master’s degree in speech-language pathology from Northwestern University (1995).

Chris Seminaro is an instructional coach for students with autism spectrum disorders in a large suburban public school system near Chicago, Illinois. She has 30 years of teaching and administrative experience specializing in working with families and students with ASD. Chris has presented nationally on development, assessment, intervention, working with families as part of the school system and educating students with autism spectrum disorders. She has presented at the International Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL) International Conferences on the topic of the DIR® model in public school systems. Chris has been on the faculty of the DIR® model Training Institute and is on the faculty of Profectum.