Day 1 will kick off with Dr. Tracey Marks, a practicing psychiatrist of over 20 years, whose mission is to increase mental health awareness and understanding by educating people about well-being and self-improvement. Dr. Marks has an enormous following on YouTube where she produces educational videos for managing stress, anxiety, and improving executive functioning. Dr. Marks’ book, Why Am I So Anxious?, is now available on our website. Next, Michelle Garcia Winner, Founder of Social Thinking, will talk about her newest work, a graphic novel for teaching executive functioning (available late 2024), and will share some of her favorite tips and tools for supporting executive function foundations for tweens and teens.

Day 2 will feature Leah Kuypers, Founder and Creator of The Zones of Regulation®. Leah will share exciting new insights about The Zones and how it is evolving in 2024. Leah’s keynote will explore ways to promote self-regulation and emotional well-being and provide practical strategies for using the Zones curriculum. Dr. Pamela Crooke, will follow Leah with a talk about empowering learners to build self-awareness and self-regulation tools through the new, updated and expanded Superflex®2nd Edition Kit: Curriculum, Storybook, and Visuals.

Get ready to engage social learning with Social Situation Shorts, a set of five video vignettes, featuring real kids in real-world social situations using their social thinking and social skills. These brand new videos are perfect for fostering discussions and engaging young students or clients with relatable social situations. Each video comes with 2 lesson plans to extend the learning, and some shorts feature a visit from Science Guy Brad for a little extra fun. Have fun exploring social concepts and skills for kids between the ages of 5-9+.

Note: This video is not eligible for continuing education credit.

In this 90-minute livestream course we’ll explore motivation-based myths. We’ll then contrast this information with research-based, as well as tried-and-true methods, to help individuals rally their motivation so they can tackle basic to complex social and organizational goals. In this journey we’ll also explore factors that get in the way of motivation such as anxiety, perfectionism, lagging social and organizational competencies, and/or digital device distractions, and then review practical strategies and tools to help individuals feel “they can” rather than “they can’t.”

Download this free visual with practical ideas for initiating social conversations, which Michelle Garcia Winner presents in this brand new course.

Loneliness is a dangerous national epidemic that has been growing in depth and complexity for many years. Loneliness not only endangers our mental and physical health, but it also can make us less kind and caring toward others, resulting at times in misbehavior at schools and within our communities. We’ll explore a range of research-informed ways we can cultivate meaningful relationships with others to foster our well-being, as well as kindness, empathy, and generosity of spirit toward others. Now more than ever, building social awareness, managing anxiety, and developing social communication strategies to combat this growing crisis of loneliness is critical for school-age children, tweens and teens, and all the way through the adult years.