TRANSCRIPT
Pathways to Family Leadership: Turning Lived Experience into Collective Impact
11/3/25 

>>Belinda: My name is Belinda Fayard. I am the assistant director of out reach at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and I'm also the parent of a young adult who has low vision and some additional disabilities as well. So I am part of this family of fabulous professionals that you're going to hear from today. We know leadership really isn't all about titles, it's about practicing connection. And this session is going to share stories of family leaders whose lived experiences became a source of empowerment for others. Educators will learn how recognizing and encouraging family leadership helps build stronger partnerships and more responsive educational systems. So we have a great presentation ahead for you. And I want to share our next slide is going to tell you November is Family Engagement Month. So happy November, everyone! It is a time to celebrate the power of partnerships, because when families are engaged, we know that our students thrive. So we're so happy to share this wonderful group of family leaders. Starting the conversation about Pathways to Family Leadership. I'm going to hand it over to Jana. 

>>Jana: Thanks so much, Belinda. Good afternoon to everyone. I am Jana Villemez, a board member for the National Family Association for DeafBlind, NFADB. And have also been involved in family engagement efforts in the Deafblind community for 15-plus years. So this is very exciting for me to be able to help kick off the world of family leadership and its impact that it will have on us. The ladies presenting today have -- they really have reflected on their individual paths of lived experience in family leadership that provide, I hope, inspiration and invaluable insights for you. They certainly have for myself. For all of us to learn from these experiences as we elevate the need for family voice. Family engagement has been elevated for our Deafblind Network over the years as we also work to share the research on how child outcomes are improved when families are engaged. Back in 2022, the National Center for DeafBlindness facilitated a five-month visioning process that included over 130 families, state Deafblind Projects and partnering organizations to create a report that's called the value of family engagement: Identifying unique needs and priorities for families of children who are Deafblind. We also call it the visioning report or the family engagement report. It includes a shared definition of family engagement. It also includes eight service priorities that families told us this is what they needed. And four state and national-level priorities for systems change. Next slide. While the entire report reflects on family voice and the development to create change, we wanted to first highlight a portion of the definition of family engagement that was written by families for families, which sets the tone for today's presentation. Now the full definition is actually in your handout but we thought this was important to emphasize. And that is that family engagement is helping families find and elevate their voice while feeling a sense of belonging in community. Next slide, Nathan. So not surprising, the research on family engagement backs up what our families had prioritized in 2022. In collaboration, and I emphasize that, we are creating practical approaches to these priorities, which are to meet families where they are. Listening to their stories will illustrate the diversity and understanding of what their needs are and where we can learn from them. Another priority is to grow family connections. Families need other families. We also want to deepen understanding of the unique experiences and the need for increased Deafblind education across the board, awareness, and understanding. And we also want to definitely empower families. So as professionals, think about moving towards listening and coaching versus the traditional automatic expert model of advice giving. And rather apply what you've heard from the families and use your expertise to offer support. This will build those trusting relationships that we need and increase the family's perceived value to the team. Another priority is strengthening family voice. We ask that people pause, be curious, and authentically and genuinely value the family story. We also ask to provide meaningful and relevant information for the family. This should require family knowledge and needs, which reinforces the need for family to be able to share their expertise and supplement it with opportunities and appropriate resources from us. Another priority is to work toward equity for all families. Ask yourself do all families have access to sound resources and opportunities to engage? We struggle with this and it can be challenging but desperately needed. Are we offering and presenting and disseminating resources and information based on who we are as professionals in the field? Or are we offering it based on the needs that we heard our families share. The last priority that families said was important is to increase family leadership at all levels, whether it be leadership at an individual or family level or community level. And/or local, state, or national level of engagement. Next slide. And our report identifies four state and national-level priorities for systems change. This is significant because of the intentional shift in perspective of engaging family voice and lived experience to inform the work of the network. Truly having their lived -- families' lived experiences shape our thinking around how we should work collectively to create systems change. It's a living example of do with, not for. And these priorities include ensuring continuity and equitable resourcing for families, deepening the reach and impact of national organizations to the local level where families are. To network nationally to expand each organization's individual capacity. And to establish written collaborative agreements for family engagement across national partner organizations. Next slide. One of our key objectives at this point is to create a national approach to building families up. We see this as Deafblind family leadership development. On a continuum, if you will, that best fits the needs of the individual family. The research on family engagement and lived experiences that you'll hear today from these awesome women give us pause and inspiration and the reinforced knowledge that we have to strengthen families. And that is based on what they told us through connection. Through meaningful resources, information, and referral. And with trust and respect. And through training with other families on needed individual skills and knowledge. And with direction. Again, consistency and continuity. And then, of course, very important is in partnership. Now we have the honor to hear from our first family leader, Katie. Go ahead, Katie. 

>>Katie: I'm Katie Sacra and I'm mom and caregiver to my 25-year-old son, TJ. He lives with complex medical needs and multiple disabilities including DeafBlindness caused by a rare genetic disease of peroxisomal disorder, also shortened and much easier to say is PBD, ZSD. It is life-limiting, multisymptom and it touches every part of our lives. I serve as director of family programs for the Global Foundation for Peroxisomal Disorders, the GFPD. And I'm going to share briefly how my path led to family leadership. And it seems a little impossible right now to even highlight this briefly because there's just so many parts that have happened in the past 25 years. To guide my story, I'm going to touch on four themes we were asked about and represented in the images on the slide in front of you. So there's first an image of a woman with many hats. And that's for roles. There's a roller coaster in the next image for experiences. The third image is of a lioness. And then the fourth image is a woman watering blooming flowers from her own hair, and that's from growth. Like many parents of children with disabilities, I have worn countless hats. Some I never wanted. Some I still don't. Some I struggled to accept. And there's not time to cover all of the roles but all of them shaped who I've become. My experience didn't begin with the diagnosis. It began the moment my son was born. The diagnosis took nearly two years and added to an already-isolating experience. Even working in healthcare, I found myself in a system with no answers. That diagnostic Odyssey marked the start of a relentless roller coaster. Misdiagnosis, survival mode, emotional strain. Therapy helped me understand the toll, the fear, and isolation that were taking on me. These harsh realities also shaped my path. I made countless tough decisions about our family, careers, surgeries. I have shed exhausted, frustrated tears in the hospital rooms. Again, each experience shaping me. I've been called a lioness, starting guard over my cub ready to fight for what's right. It's a powerful image. But while some see that lioness, to me, the real story is in that colorful fabric beneath her feet. Woven from every role, struggle, and breakthrough. And that's where my story lives. Early in my career I was told I think big and I build a lot of detail in ways that others don't. That mindset, it shaped my approach to my son's education. When I noticed communication gaps between professionals and me, back even in pre-K, I didn't just point them out, I built new bridges between families and schools by creating forms and processes. And I just kept doing that. Through every transition we had right on to adulthood. A realization came when I was working with an attorney to secure my son's educational rights and she asked me: How do you know all these experts? And I didn't really think that was anything out of the ordinary what I had done. I had cold-called specialists across the country that I didn't know but I knew I needed. I knew my son needed them. I knew his team needed them. I wasn't waiting for answers. I was building a network. I thought that was normal. It was a bit of an eye opener as I learned that everybody else just doesn't do that. But I learned not everyone can do that and that's when helping others really began. I learned so much as I advocated alongside this attorney for the next few years. I learned to let my emotion fuel my drive but not control my strategy. I also learned how much advocacy isn't just about policies, it's about people. It's also about showing up documenting again and again. The persistence to keep showing up, standing firm, and refusing to settle for anything less than you and in this case our children have a right to and deserve. Eventually, professionals began referring other families to me. One day one of my son's specialists called me a trail blazer. Still I didn't know what family leadership was. I was voluntarily doing this. I thought I'm just doing what needs to be done. I continued working but I found myself taking off more and more to be able to support families I had never even met before. They shared their stories and the barriers they faced and each story lit a fire in me. Strengthening my commitment to helping families navigate these challenges. Then my son's school refused to send us one-on-one to receive Deafblind intervener training. Even though funding was available through an outside source, I asked will you fund me instead? So they did. There I was and that training turned out to be another defining moment. Of all my professional training and experiences, working alongside that attorney for years combined with that DBI training, it changed everything. It opened doors for me and my son and soon for other students and families. Professionals saw the positive impact and I began receiving invitations and scholarships for more training. Transition, person-centered training and more. I soaked up every opportunity and used what I learned to support other families. One of those trainings, a family engagement coordinator workshop at the start of a Deafblind symposium in Texas, it was the first time I had heard the language family leadership. And I realized this is me. Healthcare taught me a lot including patient advocacy. But all of my experiences taught me that it's the whole person and the family that it's about. I embraced family engagement and eventually left my career in healthcare to work in rare disease nonprofit serving families. Along the way I learned I am deeply empathetic, sometimes to a fault. A trainer once told me I would rather teach you boundaries over and over than try to teach someone empathy. Boundaries are hard but after a lot of burnout I know they are necessary to sustain this work that we're doing. The woman watering her own flowers reminds me family leaders are often still on the roller coaster. We support others while navigating our own storms. Growth isn't just workshops and training, it's knowing when to pause, reset, and protect our energy. The quote on the screen says one of the most important things you can do on this Earth is to let people know they are not alone. I was alone and that's my why. That and my refusal to accept that things can keep being done the way they are when I know they can be improved. Ultimately, my path to leadership has unfolded on a focus I can't control but I can make sure that others know they're not on it alone. Thanks for letting me share a glimpse into my experience and please feel free to reach out about family engagement, leadership, peroxisomal disorders, rare diseases. I'll drop my info in the chat but they are on a resource slide and also in the handout. 

>>Lourdes: Hello. My name is Lourdes Quintana and I am the outreach and engagement manager for the charge syndrome foundation. Just like Katie I'm going to be sharing today three life experiences that I have experienced that had moved me and shaped me to the professional that I am today. Looking at the slide that you see right now, you're going to see on the top corner, you're going to see those four pictures. That's my brother and I. My brother is pretty much the reason why I am in this field and the reason why I ended up being a clinical psychologist. He is -- he had cerebral palsy and he wasn't able to speak verbally. But I'm not going to share any specific dates but this was a long time ago, even before our current educational laws. So I could definitely tell you about the struggle of having to open up my own pathway in terms of advocating for him and for us as a family. Which brings me to the point to share with you today that siblings are also important. Parents are definitely the mortar and everything of our families, but siblings are there. Siblings go through all of the experiences with their other siblings. And sometimes we are forgotten. And my message to you today definitely is to just remember that we are a very important part of the family and we could definitely be bringing a lot to the table. So back to my experience. My mom wasn't able to access any services. I'm telling you right now if we currently struggle trying to access services, back then we had absolutely nothing. We were just trying to keep my brother home so he wouldn't be institutionalized because that would definitely create more problems as a family unit. So we kept him. I went to school to become a psychologist. I tested every single thing, every single class that I did with him. I was able to toilet train him. To teach him how to do different types of communication. And, with that, I brought out all of that experience into my professional life. Another experience that definitely changed me was that when I was my first experience as a parent, as you can see the last picture on the bottom, it's me and my three children. And that beautiful girl next to me that is a lot taller than me, was a preemie and she was my firstborn. That was a very stressful time in our lives because she was in the NICU for several weeks because she had some medical complexities. And really when you are in a situation like that, life can change at any minute. And we experienced that. I experienced trying to find my voice as a parent against people that, in my opinion, were more knowledgeable than myself, like doctors and specialists. And this is something that working with the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation, with the CHARGE syndrome itself, a lot of our families find themselves having to conquer this fear of standing up to other professionals that might seem to know more about your child. But at the end of the day, nobody knows your child more than you. And understanding that I always share that with our families so they can understand how important their voice is in everything that they do. Next slide. So I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. So Spanish is my first language. And when I finally -- my family decided to move to Orlando, Florida. I'm currently living in Orlando, Florida. I experienced something new, which was that I saw that I had been treated differently, just because of the way that I am. And my accent, which I didn't even know that I had an accent until then. But it was incredible to see how different we were treated everywhere that we go because a lot of times, you know, professionals working with us will assume things that maybe we didn't understand certain things. They would oversimplify things. They would even try to speak louder as if that would translate into Spanish. Or find having to make any accommodations for us to be able to understand services or just basic information that everybody else had the right to and access to, it would be a problem for them to go out of the way to include us. So with that experience, definitely shaped me to be, number one, more aware of the way that sometimes I or other families that are from other parts of the world might be perceived and treated. And to bring awareness. Because those other cultural issues that might affect your way of being more clear and more of an advocate for your own right. That is something that I hold very close to my heart. As part of the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation, I found a group called Familia CHARGE and with a group of families we encourage each other. We encourage each other to speak out, to look for all the different things that can be offered to this group. And sometimes might not be. In a very kind and understanding way. Because, after all, we're all here and we're all part of the same system and we all want to help each other. So just being that kind leader to my families and having them find their voice have been pretty much life changing for me. And it's evident in the work that we have done and in the way our group has done. Just one quick example is at our last international CHARGE conference, the members of my group that were completely new to our community, they were presenters, they were running some of our breakout sessions. They were not just participants but openly and directly involved with everything. And that's all about family leadership for us. So basically, just to wrap it up for you, those three experiences, out of many others that have impacted me. Just remind me how important it is to make sure that we look at first our families as a unit, giving importance to everybody, including siblings. That a lot of times our experiences, which sometimes might be some of them pretty traumatic, we have to recognize them and we have to use them to grow. And last but not least, while some professionals, programs start and end and leave the family's lives, as their primary caregivers, they will remain constant. They will remain the same. That's why we can never lose track and lose sight of the importance for us to grow our families to make them understand how important their voice is. And give them that confidence so they can continue their journey across all of our programs and continue to grow and just seek the best for their children, which is what we all want for them. Thank you for listening to me. And now I'm going to turn it over to our next speaker. 

>>Carly: Hi. This is Carly Fredericks speaking. Can you hear me? 

>>Yes. 

>>Carly: Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to thank TSBVI team for having me here today. It's always an honor to present alongside this group of women, because it has been their leadership and collaboration that has contributed to my confidence as a professional in the field and showed me the beauty and power of connections. My story starts as a 22-year-old single mom with a little baby named Ava. Ava was born profoundly deaf at birth and diagnosed with Usher syndrome at the age of 3. When Ava was diagnosed it felt like stepping into a ring of yet another grueling round of a fight that I did not sign up for. Every count and shouldn't was a punch to the gut. Ava is just about to turn 20 in a few short weeks and is now in her sophomore year of college at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. She holds a Senate position on campus and is using her voice as a leader in the disability community. I have two other children who are unaffected and I agree with Lourdes, our siblings are so incredibly important and it does affect the entire family. Ava also has three siblings under the age of 7 on her dad's side, which makes our blended family journey both unique and rich. I started working professionally in the community as the family engagement coordinator for the state Deafblind Project in New Jersey in 2013 and completed my term as the coordinator after almost a decade. I also served on the board of the National Family Association for the Deafblind, which was incredibly instrumental and currently I'm the founder of Ava's Voice. A nonprofit that is dedicated to empowering individuals and families navigating their journey with Usher syndrome. Today, I want to share three simple but powerful mantras that have guided my journey. Dream it. Believe it. CrUSH it. Long before I ever held a title or sat on a board, I had a dream. When we first shared active's diagnosis, the response was often I'm sorry. Accompanied by a quivering lip of self-pity and tear-filled eyes. I found myself comforting others while defending a future for Ava that they couldn't imagine. I believe so deeply in my core that she could do anything. But even with that fierce determination, I longed for connection with others who just truly understood what we were going through. I had a desire for increased knowledge. I was thrown into a world I knew nothing about: Cochlear implants, visual field tests, communication strategies, professional after professional, none of which could paint a full picture. At first the volume of information was overwhelming. But that desire to learn and understand, to become fluent in a language of deafness, blindness, and everything in between led me to opportunities I never could have imagined. I attend workshops, mentors, poured over research journals. I'm lying. That was one area I knew I didn't have the capacity to even touch. But connecting with families who had walked in this path before me really deepened my understanding. On a professional level, doors opened. Invitations to conferences, collaborations on state initiatives, and roles where I could introduce a dialogue. It all began with a dream, a vision of a world where families like ours didn't have to navigate alone. Believe it. Well, dreaming is one thing and believing is another. As I immersed myself, I began to see the critical gaps in the support for our community. I believe that with knowledge comes power. The power to advocate, innovate, and reform. That belief led me to ask those hard questions. Why are so many families still unaware of essential resources? Where are the inclusive programs that address both hearing and vision together? And why do I feel like I'm literally in a pin ball machine being bounced around in every direction? My belief in a better future drove me to believe that even if things that are needed don't exist, it doesn't mean that they're not possible. And if it was the connections like this that was built for our community. It was the personal and professional connections that were at the forefront of making those dreams become a reality. CrUSH it. It's not just a catchy slogan, it's a testament to what happens when dreams and beliefs collide with real-world action. Through Ava's Voice we launched programming, peer mentorship camp for teens and campers, and family retreats. The outcomes have been nothing short of inspiring. Children gaining confidence and lifelong friendships, siblings learning empathy and advocacy. Parents having a moment to take a deep breath. We have watched the kids using their voices to crush barriers and overcome the red tape. Not the yellow tape we all love. But step into powerful new roles as leaders of their own lives. As I close, I want to be totally transparent. I realize much of what I was doing and creating was also part of my own grieving process. Because we do all grieve differently. It was really hard and exhausting at times and there were so many moments that I wanted to give up, especially when I was even let down by experts that were supposed to be my mentors. But for everyone, there were five more incredible people that crossed my path. I want to remind each and every one of you, whether you are a parent or a professional or someone just being drawn to a calling in this field, your dreams and hopes can spark change. Your belief in families can bridge gaps. And your action can crush obstacles. Together every meeting like this we are continuing to build a world where every person living with DeafBlindness has the support and community that they deserve. And ultimately elevate their voices. And now I would like to hand it over to our community engagement coordinator, Carolyn to share her journey. 

>>Carolyn: Hello. I first want to thank Carly so much for pulling me into this world. Because previous to this I felt very alone walking this path by myself. So my name is Carolyn Bradfield. I am a mother of three young children who are crazy but wonderful. I also -- I have Usher syndrome so I am a parent who is hearing impaired and legally blind. And this condition causes progressive vision and hearing loss. So I find myself navigating a little bit of a different path, being the person with the disability and kind of advocating for their family. And to be honest, I never would have considered myself to be a family leader or an advocate. I spent a large part of my life hiding my hearing loss behind my long hair or I would often make excuses for why I tripped into something, tripped over something or bumped into someone. Just to be like, oh, I'm clumsy or I wasn't paying attention. I never wanted to draw attention to my vision or hearing loss. I was also worried to ever rely on any kind of help or accommodation because I just felt like people would treat me differently or I would be judged for having a certain accommodation, especially as a teenager. I just wanted to fit in with everybody. And so for a large part of my life, I just went about doing my thing on my own. But in 2020, I realized I could no longer safely drive and getting my kid to school became impossible now. And I needed help. So, naturally, I went to the school district to ask if they could provide bus transportation for my children as an accommodation for my disability. And sadly, they said no. Over and over again. And they said that because I was the parent with a disability and not my children, they're not legally obligated to do anything. And that answer broke my heart. It really did and I felt so incredibly alone. But it also lit a fire in me because it directly impacted my children. And while I can kind of navigate life and deal with the disadvantages and struggles and challenges of having hearing and vision loss, I didn't want that to impact my children. And so I quickly realized I needed to do something. And I started sharing my story with anybody who would listen. And I quickly learned that even though I felt so alone, I wasn't. There were a lot of other parents with disabilities who were facing barriers like this. And even other parents who couldn't get their kids to school. And even had to turn to home schooling because of it. I realized after years of advocating and rallying tremendous public support for our family, we finally, finally this past September, we finally were able to get our kids on a bus to school just for this year. So who knows what next year will bring, but I know I have to keep pushing forward. We do have a federal lawsuit with our school district that's been about three years now. And so I know, like, firsthand the importance of family leadership and advocating because of this. And I know I need to keep pushing forward because every small step I make feels meaningful, not just for my family, but for other families. I have people reaching out to me on social media or, you know, through friends of friends who share similar situations. And while it breaks my heart again to hear somebody else going through it, it empowers me to realize I need to keep pushing forward to make a change, hopefully, for anybody in a situation like this. So looking back it's hard to believe how much has changed in the last few years. Like I said, I never would have thought of myself as a family leader or advocate, I just kind of went quietly about my life. And I never thought I would have found a community of others who simply just get it. Meeting Ava of Ava's Voice for the first time and meeting other moms with Usher syndrome and other teenagers with Usher syndrome was really empowering for me because I no longer felt alone and I felt like these people get it and they understand what I'm facing. And so when I started connecting with others, I started to feel more confident. And I was -- because of that confidence I realized I can use my voice now to advocate. And I learned that family leadership doesn't always start with this big, fancy title or this loud voice. Sometimes it's just a matter of having a story and starting out quietly sharing your story and connecting with others. When we start to connect with others and support others we start to transform isolation into empowerment. And therefore when we do that and we create that opportunities for families to start building leadership and confidence, we can create communities where every voice can be heard and valued and empowered. And I think it's so important for families and educators to work together to make this happen. So thank you for your time and thank you for listening. 

>>Edgenie: This is Edgenie Bellah. Carolyn, thank you so much for what you just shared. In fact, I just want to take a moment and thank everyone. There's so many words of wisdom and important lessons for us all to hold on to. With that, hello, everyone. I'm Edgenie Bellah. I'm excited to be a part of today's presentation team. We're going to shift a little bit from learning from some of the very best family leaders in the country to bringing you what I've learned from families about formal family leadership training. To do so, I'm going to wear two of my favorite hats. The first one is as the National Family Association for DeafBlind affiliate coordinator. Sharing about the opportunities and needs within the NFADB affiliate network. The other hat is as the family engagement coordinator of the Texas Deafblind Project, which is part of the TSBVI Outreach team. And wearing that hat I want to share with you about our history of doing family leadership training in our state. So let me begin by telling you a little bit about the affiliate network. NFADB is committed to creating a strong national network of families with individuals who are Deafblind. Together, we serve as a link for information sharing and collaboration. We strengthen partnerships at the local, state, and national levels. We provide a unified voice that supports and advocates for national policies. And we engage in family leadership development. The affiliate network was created by NFADB over two decades ago because there was a need for family organizations across the country to have a support system where together we could proactively address common challenges so that each organization could be strong and effective. As the network gained experience through the years, we've learned that this is -- was both about individual organization growth and collective accomplishments. Currently, we have 12 affiliates but only seven are actively engaged. A major challenge of the family organizations face is a lack of family leaders who feel confident in carrying on the work of family leadership. And taking the place of these family leaders who have served a long time. Sometimes these family leaders have served a very, very long time. The succession planning is real and it is actually meant that some of our family organizations across the country no longer exist because there were no other family leaders to step in. What we know in our meetings and individual check-ins with the Affiliate organizations is that the message has been consistently loud and clear. Our affiliates are desperate for support in developing leadership and planning for future leaders. This is where family leadership development becomes essential. And I want to stress leadership just doesn't mean being at the podium giving presentations or traveling to the state capital. It's about knowing how to show up in your own way. Using your passions and your strengths. We need to support all kinds of family leaders in all kinds of roles. So let's shift and talk about family leadership pathways. With that, we'll go to the next slide. Okay. I want to share with you an example, just one, of what leadership development can look like. In Texas, we call this our pathways to family leadership. I'm excited today to see in our audience some of the participants are our graduates of this training. When I first joined the TSBVI Outreach team in 2002, our community knew we were faced with losing our family organizations and the ability to have family at the table for important efforts. We had a lack of family members who were willing to step into leadership roles or had the capacity to do so. The ones who were serving had done so for many years and were exhausted, burned out. The Texas Deafblind Project accepted the office of special education challenge to provide family leadership training in one of our grant applications. And in 2004 we initiated the family leadership series. Through the years, it evolved to be two connected efforts. One is called the family engagement series, which was available to any family in Texas who wanted to increase their knowledge, skills, and confidence with being a leader within their family. And the other one was the family leadership series where after people had come through the family engagement series, if they chose to continue on their pathways of providing [Lapse in Audio] outside of their family, they had this opportunity. Both of these family series -- engagement series and the family leadership series ran for -- [ Audio breaking up ] As we did this through the years, this effort expanded to include families of children who are blind or had low vision. So we did this two series from 2004 through 2018 and like most of the world we were ready to start this back up in 2020 and we all know what happened. But during that time, let me tell you the outcomes of these series far surpassed our wildest dreams. Just to give you an idea of some of the things that happened. I could fill an entire hour talking with you about some of these outcomes. But just to give you an idea. We created a statewide community of family leaders that continues today, despite not having an official means to sustain it. To me, that's the very best outcome. We have two new family organizations that were formed and are still active today as a result of this leadership pathways. And graduates from these series are now serving on boards and advisory committees, not only here in Texas but across the country. We've seen and we continue to see real systems improvement and change that is driven by families. And maybe the most important piece to all of this is that our graduates of our pathways to leadership training are telling us we need to get back to providing these. And I love this part. But this time with them being part of the team. So that's what we're doing. We are in the process of going through an assortment of family leadership training opportunities and seeing what we can do together. And these family leaders, many of whom are presenting today, are working alongside each other updating the training, recruiting, and eventually will be running these series. It's a really exciting experience. And I want you to reflect back to what Jana said. It really is putting into action the family engagement visioning report. So here's what we've learned with the Affiliate Network and the Texas pathways to family leadership. It's a large umbrella, including understanding systems, knowing family leadership opportunities within each system. How to match to personal passions and talents. And how to partner with other family leaders with similar interests to accomplish systems change. Leadership isn't only the person at the podium, it's not always the people at the capital. There are many ways to be a family leader. Affiliates are desperate for leadership training and we hear from families across the country that they are too. I invite you to read the newest article in the Texas sensibility magazine. The link in there is in our handout. And if you read this, you will hear, you will learn from the graduates themselves how important this training is. So I want to leave you with this: There's power in family leadership. It comes in many forms. And we are building the pathways together. Thank you. 

>>Katie: And I too just want to take a moment to thank everyone who shared their story and say just how meaningful it is to hear the different roles and experiences that brought each of us to family leadership. Earlier when Jana walked us through direct service priorities, she mentioned amplify diverse family voices and leadership at all levels. We wanted to bring that one back for a moment because it connects so closely to what we just shared and it reminds us of this powerful truth. Nothing about us, without us. That simple phrase captures the heart of it. Families bring lived experience, insight, and perspective that no policy or data can fully represent. It's so important that families are not just a part of the conversation after decisions are made, we're included at all levels. Whether it's at the classroom or influencing state and national policy, family voices belong at every table where decisions are being made. As we move forward, let's keep thinking about how we can continue to make space for more families and all their diversity, to be heard, valued, and help lead the way. Next slide. So how do we do this? How do we keep moving forward together? Let's walk through these four key takeaways. Keep inviting families intentionally and meaningfully. It can't just be about what's convenient. Engagement needs to be intentional and it needs to happen in ways that truly matter. Keep communicating. Engagement doesn't stop there. Life happens in between those meetings and agenda items and that's where so much learning and connection occurs. Communicating consistently outside of formal meetings allows you to understand what's happening for families in realtime. Strengthens relationships and helps you respond to the changing needs. Keep mindful that access and opportunities differ. We heard earlier in the priorities that we need to meet families where they are. But how do you know where they are? That's where keeping families invited and maintaining communication. Circumstances can change over time. Their access to resources, income, support systems, and other opportunities may shift. By checking in regularly and communicating consistently you get to know families. You can better identify when situations change and understand when they may need to adapt or provide additional or different types of support. We must be mindful that access and opportunities can differ between families and also at different times for the same family. Family engagement is an ongoing process. Keep creating ways for families to build leadership and confidence. We don't just want families at the table, we want them thriving as leaders alongside us. That's how we build lasting, meaningful engagement. And that's why the line at the bottom of the slide you're looking at says "intentional engagement is key." These aren't one-time steps. We need to revisit them, reflect, and practice them. That's how family engagement and family leadership become not just concepts on a slide but a living, ongoing practice that strengthens everything we do. Remember, nothing about us without us. And that is how we move forward together. 

>>Edgenie: Hello again. This is Edgenie. We just want to wrap up by sharing with you some of the resources. Again, this is going to be in the handout that Belinda has dropped into the chat. So, again, a big thank you to all of our family leaders who have joined us today. We're so grateful for everything that you're doing, including sharing your wisdom from all kinds of perspectives. As mothers, as sisters, as, you know, just across the board. As a parent raising children with Usher syndrome. It's just incredible, so thank you very much. With that, let's see -- I think we've got one hot minute. I see Belinda coming on. Are there any questions that came up today or something that people are wondering about? Well, if you think of something, please reach out to any one of us. Or if you want to do a group conversation, we would love doing that too. And stay tuned because we really are excited to be bringing you, in the near future, a pathways to family leadership series that families across the country can benefit from. With that, let me turn it back over to Belinda. 

>>Belinda: Thank you, Edgenie. Thank you, everyone. This is really just fantastic. I think the phrase that always sticks with me is nothing about us without us. And as a teacher for students with visual impairments, you know, you can sometimes forget