If you want compassion for your children, you must start with yourself. And that is exactly where we are starting in today’s podcast.  

Patricia Morgan is a therapeutic counsellor, author, motivational speaker, coach and caregiver for her now 52-year-old daughter on the Spectrum. She is past president of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, Calgary and has won both the Spirit of CAPS award and the YWCA Woman of Vision award.  
 
Usually, when I talk to a caregiver, we talk about advice on raising an individual with FASD. Today’s conversation is a little different. While we do talk about her role as a caregiver, and how that journey led her to where she is, we spend most of our time talking about resilience and how you can develop that muscle. 

Resilience says I have the capacity to stay steady in the face of adversity, challenge, change, the behaviour of others and myself. It is also the ability to...

Have you heard the reports of the increases in alcohol consumption during this pandemic, including a significant increase in women’s intake and frequency?

A group of advocates in the United States had been talking about ways to raise FASD awareness, and these news stories nudged them to take immediate action. So much so that they undertook a cross-country journey in the mid-western United States in the middle of a pandemic to film The FASD Project. 

We continue to come across no understanding of FASD. The ball has inched forward, it’s just time to move it forward more quickly & robustly. – Gigi Davidson 

I talk to two members of the Project in today’s podcast: Gigi Davidson, Executive Producer and President of FASD Communities and Justin Shepherd, Director/Filmmaker. We talk about the statistics which was the catalyst for this Project as well as why Justin, who with his brother jumped in an RV, dubbed The Rust Bucket, in the...

We know Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder isn’t in the spotlight very much as it remains one of the most misunderstood or misdiagnosed disorders yet is the most common developmental disability. It is so important for us to work together to get the messages out, that I knew I just had to reach out when I heard about a new FASD podcast. 

Jessica Rutherford, a final-year Ph.D. student in the School of Design and Creative Arts, with her friend, colleague, and caregiver of three children on the Spectrum, Clare Devanney-Glynn recently launched the United Kingdom’s first FASD podcast. Spotlight on FASD aims to raise awareness of FASD, highlight the risk of drinking alcohol during pregnancy, share strategies around parenting and education, and have open conversations around real-life experiences.

We want to normalize it. It is what it is.

This is an interesting interview as we discuss FASD from not only the caregiving perspective but also from a front-line...

I am so pumped to present this episode of The FASD Success Show podcast because this guy has a ton of experience that I just know other Dads, Moms and caregivers will benefit from. Also, with 98 % of my audience female, I just thought it would be a great addition to have another dad/male caregiver speak. 

Jay Derting has been teaching math for 34 years at a small farming school. He and his wife, along with their three bio kids first spent three months opening up a street centre for 200 homeless children in Madagascar, then spent a year as directors. As much as he enjoyed the work, he felt something was missing, and when he came home and went back to teaching he knew that was where his passion was. Wanting to still help children, he and his wife became foster parents. Two years ago he became a Trust-Based Relational Intervention Practitioner. His wife works with Homes of Hope, a nonprofit she started, which covers eight counties and supports over 500 foster/adopt...

In today’s episode, you are going to learn what is possible in creating an agency to serve individuals with FASD and their families and caregivers. I’m talking to Lisa Murphy, the Executive Director of the Lakeland Centre for FASD. This Centre is one of the leaders in Canada for FASD programs and services. 

Lisa started with the Centre as a practicum student while taking a social work program and has risen over the years to the top.   She has worked in many capacities including advocacy and coordination of services for children, complex youth, and adults diagnosed with FASD and their families, consultation, and data collection, and as a program manager.  

We talk about her beginnings with the Agency and how she has got to where she is today, as well as: 

• Services offered by the Centre fall into three broad categories: educate & prevent, identify & diagnose, and outreach & support;
• The leadership and in supporting women with...

One of the best parts of my job is talking to all the caregivers who have such a wide range of experience and offer so much practical information to help others on the journey.

Natalie Vecchione is one of those caregivers. 

She and her husband are parents to a 5-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son (with FASD). She has been a Board-Certified Music Therapist for 25 years and began homeschooling six years ago. She and John are co-founders of FASD Hope and recently began a new adventure in the world of podcasting. They live in the farm country of North Carolina.  

Her journey to a diagnosis for her son when he was 15 was a rocky one, that like so many of our listeners have been down. We talk about that journey to get an FASD diagnosis and how when she and her husband brought up FASD as a possibility she was dismissed. 

Anytime it would be, nope, that’s not it. Because so many practitioners were under the impression that you had...

It’s great to be back to our Podcast! How important are stories in your life? Not only do stories help entertain us, but they also educate, and in some respect are medicine. To celebrate our return after a brief pause in our schedule, we have a double feature. First, we hear about a unique program that provides adults with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder an opportunity to share their stories or medicine, and then we hear from an individual who is living his life on his terms.

Individuals with FASD want their voices to be heard. They should be heard. I am excited to bring those voices and highlight programs bringing those voices to educate, entertain, and highlight success stories.

First, we talk to Emma Bergen and Suzanne Mozdzen from the Visions and Voices program out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is an interesting program that recruits adults with FASD to be part of a unique speaker’s bureau. The program aims to increase awareness in communities in order...

You know when you meet someone, and you're like "Man, they're wicked smart," and then you realize they're on your team. Such is the case with Katharine Dunbar Winsor, the Executive Director of fasdNL (Newfoundland & Labrador).

Katharine is the Executive Director of fasdNL. Prior to her appointment, Katharine previously worked as fasdNL’s Project Coordinator since 2015. Katharine is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. Her SSHRC funded research examines the experiences of criminalized mothers and substance use in Atlantic Canada.

Katharine completed her Master’s thesis entitled “If we get beyond the stereotype: professionals’ experiences attending to FASD, social supports and stigma in Newfoundland and Labrador” at Memorial University. Katharine has published and presented at various conferences on FASD and the justice system, criminalized women, and feminist criminology. She is...

Are you a single mom, or even feel like a single mom – alone, isolated, without close family or friends? Wondering if life as a caregiver with an individual with FASD is going to be a constant state of chaos and confusion? It doesn’t have to be that way. Take it from today’s guest, Claire Mafranc. She was where you might be right now, and you could be where she is right now. 

Claire is a single mom to two teenagers, both with different needs, but one with FASD. She felt alone, isolated and had no one to discuss strategies, solutions, or decompress with. She was overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, and relying on consequences and behaviour modification. Until she found our online community and the Caregiver Kick Start program. We talk about what that was like for her, including how she: 

• overcame her nervousness to become an involved participant and the benefits she received; 
• went from wanting to fix her daughter...