Please join us for our annual Mental Health Symposium! This year we will be focusing on the topic of neurodiversity and neurodivergence. The agenda includes three incredible guest speakers, each conducting their own unique session.
Find more details and registration options below! 100% of profits (after speaker honorarium), will be given to starting up our scholarship funds to support psychosocial OT practice.
Date: April 15, 2023
Time: 9:00am-12:00pm PDT
Location: Virtual event that will take place via Zoom
Speakers and Topics:
Sarah Selvaggi Hernandez: Intersecting Divergent: Moving from NeuroSupremacy to NeuroDiversity.
Sarah Selvaggi Hernandez is an Deaf.Autistic author, educator, occupational therapist, and international speaker. She was also the first openly Autistic person elected to serve in the United States government at any level. In 2023, Sarah successfully completed her elected duties after winning her ADA lawsuit to protect communication and accommodation rights for elected individuals. She is passionate about occupation, Dunn’s sensory processing model and mental wellness, and positive disability identity. She runs the popular social media site The Deaf.Autistic OT and is currently joining the autistic community’s effort to #StopTheShock used as aversives at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, MA. Sarah also serves on the advisory council of Disability Rights CT. Sarah can be found happy-flapping with her family in Enfield, CT, USA.
Cynthia Leu: Neurodivergence: Learning to Thrive with ADHD and Bipolar
Cynthia is a neurodivergent 1st generation Taiwanese American who served in the Marine Corps Reserves while obtaining her bachelor’s degree from UC Davis. In her professional life, she works in the tech industry as a program manager focused on diversity strategy and operations. Outside of her full-time career, she is a powerlifter, yogi, entrepreneur, marketing consultant, dog mom, and lifestyle influencer who talks openly about her journey with mental health — including her experience with trauma, eating disorders, therapy, medication, masking, coping with ADHD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and most recently navigating a new diagnosis of Cyclothymia/Bipolar NOS. Her journey has been far from linear, and she hopes that sharing her personal experiences can help break the stigma surrounding mental health and help others with similar struggles feel less alone.
Kristie Cabrera: How I Accepted and Embraced My Neurodiversity as an Occupational Therapist
Kristie Cabrera (she/they) is a queer, Latinx, neurodivergent, accessibility and inclusivity consultant utilizing a background in occupational therapy to guide organizations on improving their internal practices around accessibility and inclusivity. Kristie is particularly passionate about collaborating with spaces that are intended to provide healing and growth. This includes gardens, farms, parks, health centers, and forward thinking schools and non-profits. Kristie’s work is centered around unpacking ableism and views of the body/mind, understanding accessibility and inclusivity, and creating improvements to a site’s physical design, educational programs/curriculums, and work culture.
REGISTER BELOW!
(If you are not a POTAC member and wish to join, you’ll be eligible for discounted entry. Join here: https://www.potac.org/join)
*Student or retiree or individuals experiencing financial hardship
*Student or retiree or individuals experiencing financial hardship
Please consider donating to the Anne MacRae Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship aims to foster community mental health practice and provide support to occupational therapy practitioners wishing to pursue a career in community based mental health practice.