This session invites social workers and allied professionals to engage in a deep, reflective exploration of neuroaffirming practice—moving beyond inclusive language and checkbox trainings to embrace a framework rooted in ethics and dignity. Drawing from lived experience, emerging research, and her doctoral work, Alisha Stubbs challenges participants to critically examine traditional models of support—including compliance-based and behaviour-focused approaches—and the ableism that often underlies them.
Rather than centering interventions or branded modalities, this session offers a relational and anti-oppressive lens for supporting neurodiverse individuals, families, and communities. Participants will reflect on their own roles within complex systems, identify ways ableism shows up in practice, and begin to reimagine support that prioritizes autonomy, safety, and belonging. Through current scholarship, concrete strategies, and meaningful prompts, attendees will leave with increased capacity to engage in trauma-informed, dignity-centered, and neuroaffirming work across clinical, community, and policy contexts.
Participants will leave the session with the ability to:
1. Define neuroaffirming practice in a way that is grounded in ethics, relationships, and disability justice—not as a set of techniques or “soft skills,” but as a deeper commitment to safety and belonging.
2. Begin to think about how to critically assess traditional models of support, including the legacy of compliance-based interventions, goal-driven therapy, and social “skills training,” through an anti-ableist and trauma-informed lens.
3. Begin to identify specific ways that ableism shows up in practice—from assumptions about eye contact and verbal language to the pathologizing of stimming, sensory needs, or dependency.
4. Increase curiosity about how to apply trauma-responsive, dignity-centered strategies for supporting neurodiverse individuals across clinical, community, and policy contexts.
5. Reflect on their own power, role, and responsibilities as service providers, educators, or policy influencers in systems that may inadvertently marginalize those they aim to support.
