Jessica H Smith, LCSW - S

03/30/2025

https://www.facebook.com/100063485082864/posts/1150187057107453/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Autism in Black Hub

03/22/2025

Stay informed!

Potential Impact for Students with Disabilities:

With the reduction of Ed Department OCR staff, pending complaints filed by the parents of Texas children with disabilities, including some of our clients, may be further delayed or not reviewed.

OCR complaints may no longer be available as an effective course of action for children with disabilities experiencing discrimination in schools.

With additional federal budget cuts expected, we are concerned that Grants to States Program that provides special education funding to the states will be affected.

The full shutdown of the Department will likely reduce and possibly eliminate remedies that parents can use for upholding the legal rights of their students with disabilities when their efforts at the district or state levels have been unsuccessful.

https://disabilityrightstx.org/en/handout/closure-of-the-u-s-department-of-education/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJL0kxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfNE5yRFOSsQ6uy2IvvqI_tDfIt9S6fdoqa5AlKuB3tol6K9YMhFpQ3MMQ_aem_he0kwUg2sCD_lT_KdexCYA

Information on what the Education Department does, the Presidential Executive Order dissolving it and the potential impact on students with disabilities.

03/21/2025

03/20/2025

02/04/2025

I am a LGBQIA & Trans affirming therapist and I will continue to share resources that may support my clients, families and communities.

https://southernequality.org/feb5/

11/07/2024

Fyi

10/28/2024

This is your yearly reminder that-

a) Autistic people don't need to be open about being Autistic in order to be treated with kindness

b) Using blue to represent autism is tied into some really problematic parts of Autistic history that persist even to this day

If you need Autistic people to carry a blur pumpkin to show they are Autistic, the problem is not our difference. It's that you require us to compromise our safety in order to be treated with some balance of dignity.

fans

08/07/2024

I'm grateful that I was introduced to Mona Delahooke, Ph.D. 's books years ago and that I was able to be a part of her training community. My entire vision of child and adolescent therapy and parenting shifted.

Thinking and research evolves over decades, as clinical/systems & practices wait for more evidence to come in. I grew weary of witnessing children in schools & agencies treated with methods backed by old research/thinking, and that's why I wrote Beyond Behaviors. We can't shift a paradigm until we define what it is, many people don't know that there's a new way to view children, a way that's not taught in traditional university settings. The "old paradigm" rests on research conducted decades ago, with a certain focus. (Simple cause/effect). Newer models that consider the complexity of human development, attempt to hold that complexity. Sharing this often felt like swimming upstream, but the relational joy we discovered behind the labels was the proof I needed to talk about the need for a shift across systems of education, mental health, and medicine.

08/03/2024

As per ALWAYS, Em at NeuroWild has shared with all of us another beautiful graphic explanation of neuroaffirming support! Please check this out and follow them if you do not already! 🤩