20/02/2026
🌟 Big news! We’re beyond excited to announce our first speaker for our biennial conference, the SII Empowerment Summit 2026… Jessie Owen (Jessie Owen)! 🌟
Jessie Owen is a disability advocate, speaker, and digital creator with over 500,000 followers across platforms. A quadriplegic mother of twins, she shares candid insights on life, parenting, and navigating systemic barriers with humour and authenticity.
She works with Onward Medical first as an early ARC-EX clinical trial participant and now as a consultant, bringing lived experience into spinal cord injury research. Jessie has partnered with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, works with Columbia University, and her work has been featured across conferences, media, and advocacy spaces.
One of Jessie’s most powerful reflections:
✨ “Survival gets a headline, but maintenance gets our entire adulthood. The long meal is figuring out who you are now that this body is the one that you live in.” ✨
The Long Middle: Life unfolding without a finish line: After survival, identity takes shape through routine, responsibility, desire, and adaptation over time.
“The Long Middle is realizing that you survived something catastrophic and life restarted differently, but still expects you to keep your **** together in a body you’re getting to know.”
📅 Join us Saturday, 21st March
📍 The Curragh Racecourse, Newbridge, Co. Kildare
It’s going to be an inspiring, community‑driven day — and we can’t wait to welcome you!
🎟️ Tickets are selling fast — register now https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spinal-injuries-ireland-empowerment-summit-2026-tickets-1921069262879 !