Please join us for “Challenges and Progress: A Panel Discussion with our New Zealand Friends” with Jase Williams, Lynda Knight, Frian Wadia, and Kathryn Berkett. Jase Williams is a TEDx Speaker who has 25 years of experience working as an educator and is the former Principal of Henry Hill School who won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award - Wellbeing - the top education award in New Zealand. Jase is a certified trainer in the Neurosequential Model in Education (NME), and he is one of the leading voices in Relational Neuroscience & Trauma-Informed Practice in Education and has shared his knowledge through an equity-focused, compassionate, and indigenous lens with thousands of educators. Lynda Knight (M.Ed.) is the principal of Glenview School in Cannons Creek, Porirua and a leader in trauma-informed education in New Zealand. She trained with Dr Bruce Perry in the Neurosequential Model in Education (NME), gaining her initial certification in 2020 and completing her Advanced Trainer Certificate in 2022. She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2023. Under her leadership, Glenview School has transformed its culture and practice through trauma-aware and neuroscience-informed approaches, significantly improving student wellbeing, engagement and behaviour. Glenview has maintained a proud record of no stand downs, suspensions, exclusions, seclusions nor restraints for several years. Lynda also shares her work more widely through professional development, speaking engagements and presentations, including in Australia, Fiji and the UK. Frian Wadia is a parent of young adults with learning support needs and disabilities, an Early Intervention Teacher specializing in supporting autistic children and the adults supporting them, a training facilitator, community leader, and advocate for inclusion for disabled, neurodivergent, disadvantaged, and trauma-affected children. She is passionate about inclusion and equity through a disability rights, social justice, neuroscience, and trauma-informed lens and is the founder of NATINA, ie. Neuroscience and Trauma-Informed Network Aotearoa. Frian believes in empowering parents, families, and the professionals supporting children using a holistic, relational neuroscience, trauma-informed lens so all children have the opportunity to experience inclusion, a sense of belonging, and wellbeing across their environments within the home and community. Kathryn Berkett has been learning and training about behaviour for over thirty years. She has a Masters of Educational Psychology, is currently doing her second Masters of Applied Neuroscience through King's College London, and is certified as a Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics practitioner. She is an author of "What's Going on in There? The neuroscience of the adolescent brain", has a podcast series with Pio Terei called "I've Got Questions' and has a TEDx talk entitled "Neuroscience of Device Zombies". Support the show
