The Campus School at Boston College will present a virtual conference for parents with children who have comprehensive care and health needs, and for professionals who work with them and their families, on Saturday, November 5.

Titled “Parenting, Communication and Emotions: Perspectives on Our Children with Extensive Support and Medical Needs,” the online seminar on ways to support students with disabilities, their families, and the school community will run from 9:00 a.m. to noon and feature expert presentations and a panel discussion.

An introduction by Stanton E.F. Wortham, the Charles F. Donovan, S.J., dean of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College, will be followed by a keynote address by Campus School parent Christina Cipriano, an assistant professor at the Yale Child Study Center and director of research at the Yale School of Medicine’s Center for Emotional Intelligence. Her presentation, titled “The Emotions of Inclusion: Supporting Our Children and Families to Belong,” will explore the pivotal role emotion science plays in student outcomes.

Susan M. Bruce, a professor of special education at the Lynch School and the mother of a daughter with multiple disabilities, will follow the keynote.  Her remarks, “Promoting Communication Development through Literacy Activities,” will focus on how literacy programs that reflect shared emotions and experiences can be created and implemented in the home.

Prior to a panel discussion, presenters Sandra Clancy, a former program manager and patient advocate in the Coordinated Care Clinic, and Supportive and Palliative Care Service at MassGeneral Hospital for Children, and Justine Dallaria, formerly of Boston Medical Center and MassGeneral Hospital, who has extensive experience working with families in crisis and helping them cope with the emotional and social impact of illness, will co-lead a presentation on parents as long-term caregivers.

Boston College School of Social Work Associate Dean Teresa Schirmer, a licensed independent clinical social worker with more than 25 years of experience working with adolescents, adults and families, will moderate the panel discussion.

Find more details about the event here.

The conference will conclude with remarks from Tom Miller, the interim director of The Campus School.

To RSVP for a meeting link and to send questions for the panel discussion, contact Karalyn Hardiman at KMH94@BC.edu.

 

Phil Gloudemans | University Communications | November 2022