Online Social Groups for Adults

Karen McDowell is an educator with over 25 years experience working with the adolescent and young adult population. She is an assistant faculty member of Profectum Foundation and strives to implement a comprehensive developmental curriculum into both her classroom environment and therapy work. As a Lead Teacher and Young Adult Program Coordinator at Celebrate the Children school for 13 years, she has contributed to innovative curriculum and strategies with the unique needs of individuals in mind while promoting opportunities for growth and development in both group and individual settings. Karen facilitates a weekly young adult group for several years with intensive focus on social and emotional strengths and challenges. Areas of interest and study include executive functioning, visual spatial processing, emotional regulation, and problem solving and she has provided workshops around the country on these developmental areas. Karen strives to provide programs that entice thinking, collaborative problem solving, effective communication, and positive coping strategies to support success, independence, meaningful and fulfilling experiences, and happiness within the demands of the 21st century.

Maria has held a DIR Certificate since 2007 and served as a Training Leader at ICDL. She has co-coordinated numerous trainings in the DIR/Floortime Model in Argentina, both at FLENI and at UAI (Universidad Abierta Interamericana), in Buenos Aires and across the country. She provides DIR model-based interventions to children and their families and supervises and consults with professional teams working with children and adolescents with special needs. Maria has been invited to different conferences and lectures across the country to speak about the DIR Model.