Mary Ann O’Connell is a dedicated speech-language pathologist with over 25 years of experience as a pediatric clinician. Mary Ann’s area of expertise and interest is working with clients and families who present with a breadth and depth of individual differences. In addition to clinical work, Mary Ann has widespread experience as a supervisor and mentor with fellow speech-language pathologists and additional experience as a DIR® tutor and instructor with Profectum Academy and in private practice.

Mary Ann is on the faculty with Profectum Academy. In addition to DIR® training & teaching, she has taken several of Marge Blanc’s Natural Language Acquisition courses. She is trained in the PROMPT technique, and Oral-Motor training by Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson MS, CCC-SLP. Mary Ann has presented at conferences, school in-services, and workplace training. 

Mary Ann’s leadership experience extends beyond clinical work. Mary Ann served as the chairperson for Profectum’s 2023 Diversity Equity and Inclusion Conference. She has also been a member of committees with Profectum Academy and Fielding Graduate School. 

Mary Ann is a doctoral student in the Infant and Early Childhood (IECD) program with an emphasis in Infant Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities at Fielding Graduate University. Her area of interest is studying gestures of autistic children.

Lisa Reilly has led and developed non-profit organizations in the arts, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, and education. Her work honing strategic and operational aspects of organizations has enabled sustainable growth and expanded impact for their missions and visions. At Profectum, Lisa will oversee operations, strategic initiatives and fundraising, working closely with the Board of Directors as the organization enters a period of growth.

Lisa has held leadership roles as the Executive Director of Big Apple Performing Arts the Executive Director of the Emelin Theatre, the Managing and Artistic Director of the College of Staten Island Center for the Arts, and the Executive Director of the Earlville Opera House. She served as the inaugural Director of Dance Programming at The Flea Theater, and as Executive Director of Westbeth, an artists’ housing project in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.

Lisa taught at Syracuse University and has served as a consultant for nonprofit organizations in the areas of marketing, fundraising, board development, grants writing, executive searches, and curriculum. She has served on and chaired panels for the New York State Council on the Arts, the Council on Arts and Humanities for Staten Island, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour program, the Performing Arts Exchange Conference, ArtsWestchester, and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Lisa is a board member for Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, Blessed Unrest, MICRO (the world’s smallest museum). and Racoco Productions. Recent consulting projects include fundraising for Good Call NYC (a social justice organization working to end mass incarceration and uphold Sixth Amendment rights) and Broadway for Arts Education (supporting arts education in NYC, Haiti, and India).

Lisa routinely serves as an Accessibility Clerk at voting sites in NYC, ensuring that all voters are able to have fair and equal access to their right to vote. She is an avid crossword puzzle fan and has solved over 1700 crosswords in the last year; she is also a recent convert to strength training, and can do a lot more push-ups than you think she can.

Taiisha Calbert-Foster is a School Psychologist with seasoned experience working with students in both the elementary and secondary levels of education. She also provides home-based parent consultation for families of children with emotional and developmental disabilities. Ms. Calbert-Foster specializes in building strong relationships between parents, children, and the school environment to promote emotional intelligence, interpersonal relationships, and advocacy for students with special needs.  She is passionate about building social awareness for a variety of topics including mental health, race, culture, gender equity, LGBTQ+, and neurodivergence to communities at large. Ms. Calbert-Foster is a Ph.D. student at Fielding Graduate University. Her area of study is Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. Ms. Calbert-Foster’s purpose for further study is to broaden her impact across the lifespan from a developmental perspective that uses a relational, strengths-based approach to improve the lives of children and their families.  Ms. Calbert-Foster is a mother to a teenage daughter and attributes her strength and determination to her faith and experiences as a parent. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and engaging in health and wellness activities.

Gilbert M. Foley, Ed.D., IMH-E serves as Consulting Clinical Psychologist at the New York Center for Child Development (NYCCD) in New York City and Clinical Co- Director of the New York City Early Childhood Mental Health Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC). He is Endorsed as an Infant Mental Health/ Clinical Mentor, Level IV and is a founding board member of the New York and Pennsylvania State Associations of Infant Mental Health. He is a senior faculty member of the DIR® Profectum Academy and core faculty member of the Psychodynamic Institute for Clinical Social work (Chicago). Dr Foley is a retired Associate Professor (tenured) of the School-Clinical Child Psychology Doctoral Program at Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and Director Emeritus of the Graduate Program in Infant Mental Health and Developmental Practice at Adelphi University. He served as Visiting Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center and was Director of Psychology in the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Foley is the co-author of four books and has written over 50 scholarly articles and chapters. Linking Sensory Integration and Mental Health: Nurturing Self-Regulation in Infants and Young Children has just been published by National Zero to Three. Dr. Foley lectures widely nationally and internationally.

Cortney is a speech-language pathologist and infant/early childhood mental health consultant with a special interest in illuminating the connection between communication and other developmental domains, especially in the context of relationships. She earned her BA in Psychology from the University of California, Irvine in 2003 and MA in Communication Disorders from Northwestern University in 2008.

Cortney owns a private practice in Chicago, Grove Communication Therapy, which operates in collaboration with a transdisciplinary team providing therapy and in-depth evaluations using the DIRFloortime® model. In 2019, Cortney qualified as a trainer and expert clinician in DIR-FCD™ through Profectum Foundation and later went on to be named Assistant Faculty at Profectum. Cortney completed the Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health program at Erikson Institute in 2021 and is a credentialed I/ECMH consultant through the Illinois Association of Infant Mental Health. 

Cortney presents and mentors on various topics related to development, communication, and relationship-based work. One-on-one and small group mentoring is one of her favorite ways to support other clinicians in their use of integrated, transdisciplinary work that centers relationships. She is honored to be a member of Profectum’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion conference committee which puts together rich programming around DEI in relationship-based work each year. Cortney has an incredibly supportive partner and three young children at home who are her favorite instructors in all it means to be human, along with a rambunctious newfypoo who reminds her every day about the importance of remaining joyfully in the present moment.

Dr. Serena Wieder is the Clinical Director and a founding member of the Profectum Foundation, dedicated to advancing the development and mental health of children, of all ages, including adolescents and adults with neurodivergent development and emotional challenges through interdisciplinary training and educational programs. She also co-founded the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders and was a Board Member of Zero to Three for 23 years. Dr. Wieder serves on various advisory boards to various programs serving infant mental health and other special needs.  Dr. Wieder also founded DIR-Israel, a training program that offers DIR Certificates, and provides consultation and training to many international and national programs.

As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Wieder has pioneered important approaches to diagnosing and treating infants and toddlers with infant mental health and developmental disorders.  She co-created the DIR Model with Stanley Greenspan, edited two diagnostic manuals for infants and young children. Further, she created models for interdisciplinary post-graduate case based training and pioneered parent-mediated intervention for parents of neurodivergent children.

Dr. Wieder has co-chaired and organized national and international conferences integrating development, neuroscience and intervention approaches for over 20 years. Dr. Wieder also developed approaches to integrate visual-spatial knowledge to advance emotional and cognitive development.  Her research interests concern follow up studies of children on the autism spectrum who received DIR model interventions and the evaluation of training and educational programs. In addition, she serves as adjunct faculty at various universities including Bank Street , UCS Davis IMH Fellowship Program, and Adelphi.

Amongst her many publications Dr. Wieder co-authored Engaging Autism, The Child With Special Needs and Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health with Stanley Greenspan, M.D. They also co-edited Infants in Multi-Risk Families as well as the ICDL Diagnostic Manual for Infants and Young Children (DMIC)/ She edited the original Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC 0-3) for Zero-Three. . Her chapters on the DIR Model appear in major textbooks on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Dr. Wieder also co- authored Visual Spatial Portals to Thinking, Feeling, and Movement with Harry Wachs, O.D. She has published numerous journal and book chapters and presents at multiple conferences nationally and internationally.

At this time, Dr. Serena Wieder also has a private practice in NYC for diagnosis, treatment and consultation regarding complex developmental and mental health challenges.

I am Colombian, married to the best partner and mom of 3 amazing kids. I have been very privileged living in different countries: Colombia, Venezuela, China and México. I love to keep learning. I studied economics in Bogotá, then a Masters in Operational research in Caracas- Venezuela. I took a postgraduate course in Autism in Mexico City and I am finishing my Masters in Public Policy also in Mexico City. While in China I started a start up of didactic wooden toys with the idea of selecting only products that would stimulate the different intelligences described in the theory of the multiple intelligences of Dr. Howard Gardner. When my son was 2 years old he was diagnosed with autism and since then I have dedicated my life to learn about it, find the best therapies according to his stage of development, train myself with the help of his therapists in order to continue the focus of each session at home and be what I call "a first step guide" to parents that receive the diagnosis and are overwhelmed with it and do not know where to start. Since my youngest daughter has ADHD and epilepsy I am currently also learning how to best support her challenges too. I celebrate their uniqueness always, embrace their differences and share them with other families because I believe people always want to understand, learn and help.

Psychologist and DIR® practitioner with 14 years of experience working in different settings with children and teenagers with neurological differences and developmental challenges, most of them diagnosed with ASD, SPD or ADHD, their parents, primary caregivers, teachers, therapists, and communities. Currently working as a DIR® practitioner, Team Leader (Case Manager), Integrative Therapy and Parental Guidance, Special Education and Inclusion Program - coaching, supervision and guidance for schools, teachers and aides.

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.

Dr. Kerry-Ann Escayg is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Her research areas include anti-racism in early childhood education, children and race, Black children's racial identity development, and qualitative research with young children.  Her most recent publications include a book chapter entitled " Proactive, not reactive: Creating anti-racist policies for childcare centers and preschools, and the co-authored text, " We Are the Change We Seek: Advancing Racial Justice in Early Care and Education." Dr. Escayg is also the founder and executive director of  The Anti-Racist Early Childhood Institute, an online training center for early childhood educators.

Dr. Roopnarine is the Pearl S. Falk Professor of Human Development and Family Science. He is Professor Extraordinary of Developmental Psychology, Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname, and research scientist at the Family Development Centre at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. He served as a consultant to the Roving Caregiver Program, a home-based intervention program implemented in several Caribbean countries to improve early parent-child relationships and children’s cognitive and social skills, and assisted in the revision of the national early childhood curriculum for the government of Guyana. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago and also an Indo-U.S.-Subcommission Professor of Psychology at the University of Delhi, India, the Nehru Distinguished Visiting Professor at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujrat, India, minority scholar in residence at The Pennsylvania State University, and held visiting appointments at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Cornell University, The City University of New York, and The University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He has published extensively in the area of father-child relationships across cultures. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Caribbean Journal of Psychology.

Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S; Ph.D. Candidate: Doctoral Student in MFT; Bilingual (Spanish/English) & Bicultural Therapist

Liliana Baylon has a master’s degree in counseling & Marriage, Family, & Child Therapy and an MBA from the University of Phoenix in Colorado. Since entering therapy, Liliana has developed an interest and niche in treating children and families who have experienced trauma and multicultural issues from an attachment lens. Liliana has received training in different modalities to treat these populations better, some of which she is a trained educator. 

Liliana is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, Synergetic Play Therapy Consultant, EFT Supervisor, EMDR Certified, TheraPlay Level 1, Independent Facilitator of the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent Curriculum, Bring Baby Home Gottman Trained Educator, Gottman Seven Principles Program Educator, Completed Level 2 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy.  

Liliana brings a unique cultural lens into her therapy and supervision sessions. Liliana is passionate about working with fellow mental health professionals to embrace curiosity and inspiration and discover meaning to reach their full potential from attachment and cultural lenses. Liliana offers workshops in Mental Health and Cultural Opportunity for psychotherapists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Teachers and Consultations for Agencies, Schools, Private Practices, Mental Health Centers, & Non-Profits in English and Spanish.

Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S; Ph.D. Candidate: Doctoral Student in MFT; Bilingual (Spanish/English) & Bicultural Therapist

Liliana Baylon has a master’s degree in counseling & Marriage, Family, & Child Therapy and an MBA from the University of Phoenix in Colorado. Since entering therapy, Liliana has developed an interest and niche in treating children and families who have experienced trauma and multicultural issues from an attachment lens. Liliana has received training in different modalities to treat these populations better, some of which she is a trained educator. 

Liliana is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, Synergetic Play Therapy Consultant, EFT Supervisor, EMDR Certified, TheraPlay Level 1, Independent Facilitator of the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent Curriculum, Bring Baby Home Gottman Trained Educator, Gottman Seven Principles Program Educator, Completed Level 2 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy.  

Liliana brings a unique cultural lens into her therapy and supervision sessions. Liliana is passionate about working with fellow mental health professionals to embrace curiosity and inspiration and discover meaning to reach their full potential from attachment and cultural lenses. Liliana offers workshops in Mental Health and Cultural Opportunity for psychotherapists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Teachers and Consultations for Agencies, Schools, Private Practices, Mental Health Centers, & Non-Profits in English and Spanish.

Jeannie Gutierrez, Ph.D. Is a clinical psychologist with over 30 years of clinical and consulting experience, working in Chicago, Illinois.  She works in a collaborative practice with occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and learning specialists to support the development and mental health of children and families with diverse neurodivergent profiles.

Psychologist and Neuropsychologist who works with children and adolescents with developmental diagnosis. Assistant Faculty for Profectum and a Positive Discipline certified therapist.

Dr. Roopnarine is the Pearl S. Falk Professor of Human Development and Family Science. He is Professor Extraordinary of Developmental Psychology, Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname, and research scientist at the Family Development Centre at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. He served as a consultant to the Roving Caregiver Program, a home-based intervention program implemented in several Caribbean countries to improve early parent-child relationships and children’s cognitive and social skills, and assisted in the revision of the national early childhood curriculum for the government of Guyana. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago and also an Indo-U.S.-Subcommission Professor of Psychology at the University of Delhi, India, the Nehru Distinguished Visiting Professor at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujrat, India, minority scholar in residence at The Pennsylvania State University, and held visiting appointments at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Cornell University, The City University of New York, and The University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He has published extensively in the area of father-child relationships across cultures. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Caribbean Journal of Psychology.

Kamelia was born and raised in Iran and lived in Spain prior to migrating to the United States. She has been a speech-language pathologist for 27 years, working in the public school system and private practice settings. Her areas of specialty include play-based developmental assessments, early intervention, and parent coaching.

Mary Ann O’Connell is a dedicated speech-language pathologist with over 25 years of experience as a pediatric clinician. Mary Ann’s area of expertise and interest is working with clients and families who present with a breadth and depth of individual differences. In addition to clinical work, Mary Ann has widespread experience as a supervisor and mentor with fellow speech-language pathologists and additional experience as a DIR® tutor and instructor with Profectum Academy and in private practice.

Mary Ann is on the faculty with Profectum Academy. In addition to DIR® training & teaching, she has taken several of Marge Blanc’s Natural Language Acquisition courses. She is trained in the PROMPT technique, and Oral-Motor training by Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson MS, CCC-SLP. Mary Ann has presented at conferences, school in-services, and workplace training. 

Mary Ann’s leadership experience extends beyond clinical work. Mary Ann served as the chairperson for Profectum’s 2023 Diversity Equity and Inclusion Conference. She has also been a member of committees with Profectum Academy and Fielding Graduate School. 

Mary Ann is a doctoral student in the Infant and Early Childhood (IECD) program with an emphasis in Infant Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities at Fielding Graduate University. Her area of interest is studying gestures of autistic children.

Lisa Reilly has led and developed non-profit organizations in the arts, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, and education. Her work honing strategic and operational aspects of organizations has enabled sustainable growth and expanded impact for their missions and visions. At Profectum, Lisa will oversee operations, strategic initiatives and fundraising, working closely with the Board of Directors as the organization enters a period of growth.

Lisa has held leadership roles as the Executive Director of Big Apple Performing Arts the Executive Director of the Emelin Theatre, the Managing and Artistic Director of the College of Staten Island Center for the Arts, and the Executive Director of the Earlville Opera House. She served as the inaugural Director of Dance Programming at The Flea Theater, and as Executive Director of Westbeth, an artists’ housing project in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.

Lisa taught at Syracuse University and has served as a consultant for nonprofit organizations in the areas of marketing, fundraising, board development, grants writing, executive searches, and curriculum. She has served on and chaired panels for the New York State Council on the Arts, the Council on Arts and Humanities for Staten Island, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour program, the Performing Arts Exchange Conference, ArtsWestchester, and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Lisa is a board member for Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, Blessed Unrest, MICRO (the world’s smallest museum). and Racoco Productions. Recent consulting projects include fundraising for Good Call NYC (a social justice organization working to end mass incarceration and uphold Sixth Amendment rights) and Broadway for Arts Education (supporting arts education in NYC, Haiti, and India).

Lisa routinely serves as an Accessibility Clerk at voting sites in NYC, ensuring that all voters are able to have fair and equal access to their right to vote. She is an avid crossword puzzle fan and has solved over 1700 crosswords in the last year; she is also a recent convert to strength training, and can do a lot more push-ups than you think she can.

I am an early childhood specialist with a background in neurodiversity and disability. I am a lecturer in early years & SEND at Goldsmiths University, an author & student completing my EdD at Sheffield University.

My aim in working in the early years is to challenge the deficit narrative around development differences and to improve the quality of play-based intervention so that there is a move away from teaching neurodivergent children to mimic neurotypical skills, also referred to as masking.

Nucha Isarowong, PhD, LICSW, IMH-E® is Director of the Advanced Clinical Training (ACT) Program at the Barnard Center for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at the University of Washington. In this current role, he works to diversify and expand the infant and early childhood mental health clinical workforce in the state of Washington by centering relationships and principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in program administration, curriculum, and delivery. He engages in efforts towards systems change by influencing multi-level systems integration of diversity-informed practice principles in the IECMH field broadly, and with specific attention to father engagement and (dis)Ability. Nucha is a ZERO TO THREE Fellow (2012-2013) and a member of the Academy of ZERO TO THREE Fellows Coordinating Committee. He also serves as a national workshop facilitator and member of the Executive Committee of the Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families (Tenets) Initiative.

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.

Tal Baz, MS, OTR/L is a registered and licensed occupational therapist who has practiced as a DIR Floortime® therapist, supervisor and consultant for more than fifteen years and works both nationally and internationally with families, clinicians, and various school systems. She has a clinical practice in Somerville, MA, and is teaching DIR Floortime® courses through the Profectum Foundation, nationally as well as internationally. Her special interests are in sensory-affective regulation, as it develops within the parent-child relational field. Tal has served on the DIR® faculty since 2001.

Liesl is a Neurodiversity affirming SLP and Clinical Leader with 25 years of experience supporting autistic children, their families and their care providers. She is the Regional Clinical Director for Positive Development of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. Positive Development is a multi-disciplinary clinic with a mission to provide high quality and affordable developmental services to families of autistic children as well as high quality training and support to the professionals who serve them. She is the proud mom of two children - one of whom is neurodivergent - and lives with her sweet and silly family in Washington DC.

Beth Osten, MS, PhD, OTR/L is a lifelong clinician with interests in clinical consultation and research. She is Chief Clinical Advisor at Positive Development, a DRBI autism services company. Beth speaks internationally on DRBI, autism, sensory processing, regulatory disorders, interpersonal connectedness, and parent mediated intervention. She is recognized as an expert training leader for DIRFloortime® and co-authored of the Test of Infant Motor Performance.  Beth’s PhD is in Infant and Early Childhood Development with an emphasis on infant mental health and developmental disorders. Her research examined mother-child  connectedness in preschool children with and without autism. She examined the validity of a clinical tool, the Connection Coder, to easily assess interpersonal connectedness to better understand mother child interaction.

Jennie Trocchio, Ph.D., is an autism educator and DIRFloortime® provider with extensive experience evaluating, educating, and creating engaging programs for autistic individuals and their families. She is currently the VP of Clinical Operations at Positive Development, where she supports training and providing developmentally based intervention to families across the country. Previously, Dr. Jennie has worked in both public and private educational settings, including launching Florida’s first DIRFloortime® School in 2008, where she served as the lead teacher, director of education, and president of the board of directors. Dr. Jennie earned her BS and MS from the University of Miami in Special Education, and her Ph.D. from Barry University in Leadership and Special Education with a focus in autism.

Tal Baz, MS, OTR/L is a registered and licensed occupational therapist who has practiced as a DIR Floortime® therapist, supervisor and consultant for more than fifteen years and works both nationally and internationally with families, clinicians, and various school systems. She has a clinical practice in Somerville, MA, and is teaching DIR Floortime® courses through the Profectum Foundation, nationally as well as internationally. Her special interests are in sensory-affective regulation, as it develops within the parent-child relational field. Tal has served on the DIR® faculty since 2001.

Psychologist and DIR® practitioner with 14 years of experience working in different settings with children and teenagers with neurological differences and developmental challenges, most of them diagnosed with ASD, SPD or ADHD, their parents, primary caregivers, teachers, therapists, and communities. Currently working as a DIR® practitioner, Team Leader (Case Manager), Integrative Therapy and Parental Guidance, Special Education and Inclusion Program - coaching, supervision and guidance for schools, teachers and aides.

Nucha Isarowong, PhD, LICSW, IMH-E® is Director of the Advanced Clinical Training (ACT) Program at the Barnard Center for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at the University of Washington. In this current role, he works to diversify and expand the infant and early childhood mental health clinical workforce in the state of Washington by centering relationships and principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in program administration, curriculum, and delivery. He engages in efforts towards systems change by influencing multi-level systems integration of diversity-informed practice principles in the IECMH field broadly, and with specific attention to father engagement and (dis)Ability. Nucha is a ZERO TO THREE Fellow (2012-2013) and a member of the Academy of ZERO TO THREE Fellows Coordinating Committee. He also serves as a national workshop facilitator and member of the Executive Committee of the Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families (Tenets) Initiative.

I am an early childhood specialist with a background in neurodiversity and disability. I am a lecturer in early years & SEND at Goldsmiths University, an author & student completing my EdD at Sheffield University.

My aim in working in the early years is to challenge the deficit narrative around development differences and to improve the quality of play-based intervention so that there is a move away from teaching neurodivergent children to mimic neurotypical skills, also referred to as masking.