2025 Summer Institute Speakers
Strand 1: Collaborative and Proactive Solutions
Dr. Ross Greene
Ross W. Greene, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and the originator of the innovative, evidence-based approach called Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS), as described in his influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings. He also developed and executive produced the award-winning documentary film The Kids We Lose, released in 2018. Dr. Greene was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years, and is now founding director of the non-profit Lives in the Balance. He is also currently adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech and adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Greene has worked with several thousand kids with concerning behaviours and their caregivers, and he and his colleagues have overseen implementation and evaluation of the CPS model in countless schools, inpatient psychiatry units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities, with dramatic effect: significant reductions in recidivism, discipline referrals, detentions, suspensions, and use of restraint and seclusion. Dr. Greene lectures throughout the world and lives in Freeport, Maine.
Strand 2: Positive Behaviour Supports and Prevention Strategies in the Classroom
Dr. Brenda Fossett
Brenda Fossett, Ph.D., BCBA-D is an inspired teacher who is widely admired for her ability to convey complex concepts to those who live and work with children and adults who have developmental disabilities. Brenda began her career as a teacher of deaf children with developmental disabilities at the BC School for the Deaf and, over the past thirty years, has provided support to children, youth, and adults with developmental disabilities in home, school, and community settings, with a strong focus on PBS. Brenda is currently on faculty in the Applied Behaviour Analysis-Autism Department at Capilano University and heads up the DeafPlus Support Team, a group of behaviour analytic consultants with expertise supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals with developmental disabilities.
Strand 3: An Inclusive Life After High School: Effective Practices for Transition Age Youth
Dr. Paul Malette
Dr. Paul Malette has been a director of CBI Consultants since 1990. He leads a team of 50 passionate professionals promoting inclusion and diversity across the lifespan. To date, CBI Consultants has supported more than 10,000 individuals with complex support needs worldwide. Dr. Malette and the CBI team are committed to implementing evidence-based inclusive practices in the home, school, community, and work settings. CBI Consultants has developed a Self-Determination course, with a focus on paid inclusive employment. Currently, this Self-Determination instruction is being used in schools and support agencies in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, and the Yukon. The course teaches diverse learners to develop self-directed life plans and achieve inclusive lives after high school. As a presenter, Paul demonstrates research in practice through a wealth of examples that the CBI team has implemented with family, school, community, and employment partners. Paul continues to present CBI’s research and practice at international conferences and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Deborah Simak
As an experienced special education teacher and Administrator, Deborah’s focus has been on changing life outcomes for students with exceptionalities. Deborah has experience teaching students with exceptional learning needs in both segregated and inclusive secondary classrooms as well as holding leadership positions including District Principal of Learning Support Programs and later as Director of Learning Support for the Burnaby School District. Working in partnership with CBI Consultants, Deborah implemented a comprehensive professional development program for both LSS teachers and EA’s to fully understand Positive Behaviour Support and Customized Employment Training. At the provincial level, Deborah held various positions on the B.C. Council of Administrators for Special Education (BCCASE) for 14 years including President for two years. Deborah is currently an Educational Advisor with CBI Consultants.
Deborah has a Bachelor of Arts major in Psychology from University of New Brunswick, a Bachelor of Education from University of Alberta and a Master of Education in Educational Leadership from University of British Columbia.
Strand 4: Self-Regulated Learning as a Framework for Creating Inclusive Contexts for Diverse Learners
Dr. Leyton Schnellert
Leyton Schnellert has been a middle and secondary years classroom teacher and learning resource teacher, K–12. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of British Columbia and Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship. His research attends to how teachers and learners can embrace student diversity, inclusive education, self- and co-regulation and pedagogical practices that draw from students’ funds of knowledge to build participatory, collaborative, and culturally-responsive learning communities. He has co-authored 6 books for educators including Developing Self-Regulating Learners, Student Diversity, the It’s All About Thinking series and Pulling Together
Strand 5: Inclusive & Competency Based IEPs
Dr. Shelley Moore
Based in British Columbia, Canada, Dr. Shelley Moore is a highly sought-after inclusive education researcher, teacher, consultant and storyteller. She has worked with school districts and community organizations around the world. Her research explores how to support teachers to design for all learners in grade level academic classrooms that include students with intellectual disabilities using strength based and responsive approaches. Shelley completed her undergraduate degree in Special Education at the University of Alberta, her Masters at Simon Fraser University, and her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia.
Kate Campbell
Kate Campbell has been a teacher for 18 years. She received an undergrad at the University of British Columbia in 2006 and a Masters degree in 2012 from Simon Fraser University. Over this time, she has been committed to and advocated for inclusive access for all students. In the Richmond school district, Kate has been a Resource Teacher in a secondary school and a consultant on the District Inclusion Support Team where she collaborated with school teams to support students with intellectual disabilities, K – 12. Kate provides regular professional development to teachers and Educational Assistants on many topics including inclusive and competency-based IEP (ICBIEP), collaborative practices, executive functioning, accessing student voice, programming for inclusion and Universal Design for Learning. Kate is also an instructor for Richmond’s Educational Assistant Program (REAP) and is looking forward to her next new challenge in a leadership role in the Chilliwack school district in 2025/2026.
Strand 6: Children and Youth are more Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down than Ever: What’s Going On? What Can We Do About it?
Hannah Beach
Hannah Beach is an award-winning educator, author, emotional health consultant, and keynote speaker. She is the co-author of the best-selling book Reclaiming Our Students: Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut-Down than Ever—and What We Can Do About It, with Tamara Neufeld Strijack, a trauma-informed resource for educators and parents rooted in the relationship-based approach, now being translated into multiple languages internationally (including French, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Ukrainian and Korean) and has been adopted by school boards across Canada. She was recognized by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2017 as one of five featured changemakers in Canada. Her bestselling I Can Dance book series, supporting the emotional health of children through movement, play, and expression, won a 2017 Gold International Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.
Hannah delivers professional development services across the globe, provides emotional health consulting to schools and community based programs, and speaks at conferences about the power of relationship and play. Hannah is an emotional health and play-based learning consultant for Britannica Education, where she develops courses which are facilitated by the Britannica Education team.
Tamara Strijack
Tamara Strijack is the Academic Dean of the Neufeld Institute, where she develops and delivers courses and workshops supporting parents, teachers, and helping professionals around the world make sense of children through developmental science.
Tamara works as a registered clinical counsellor, parent consultant, and sessional instructor for several universities, where she lectures for both the faculties of education and counselling. She provides emotional health consulting for schools and advises on the development of new programs that foster the social and emotional growth of all students.
She is the co-author of Reclaiming Our Students: Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut-Down than Ever—and What We Can Do About It.
Tamara has two daughters and lives on the West Coast of Canada.
Strand 7: Reimagining Inclusive Education Through Disability Justice
Dr. Carly Christensen
A graduate of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, Dr. Christensen has extensive teaching experience within unique educational settings in the United Kingdom, so-called Canada, and the so-called United States. These settings include urban secondary schools, a rural middle school, a special education school, an inner city all-girls secondary school, an Indigenous adult education program, and First Nations schools in northern Ontario. Within First Nations schools, she was a special education teacher who co-developed culturally-based special education programming.
As a person with a disability, she is deeply passionate about anti-ableist education as necessary to creating inclusive schools. As a scholar-practitioner, Dr. Christensen’s vision is to mobilize disability justice and critical disability research from her international networks to empower students with disabilities and to improve teaching practices in schools.
Dr. Christensen is an Assistant Professor with UBC’s Faculty of Education and currently teaches special education courses within the Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS) department.
