Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities

03/09/2026

Join us for a special webinar: The Power of Play: Building Connections and Belonging for Young Children with IDD and Their Families

Play is more than fun — it's how children connect, grow, and find their place in the world. This webinar, in partnership with Special Olympics and the Georgetown University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) is hosting a conversation centered on the lived experiences of families raising children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

Hear directly from families about how the Young Athletes app is helping create joyful, inclusive play — and what that means for connection and belonging.

We're excited to once again work with the team of Special Olympics fellows who participated in our Innovation Hub Fall 2025 cohort!

📅 Tuesday, March 11 | 11:00 AM ET
✅ Live closed captioning provided
👉 Register at this website: https://georgetown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5qDL-r8PRAasQgZ3AOElEQ #/registration

Register today and bring a colleague — this is a conversation worth sharing!

A Partnership Between the Georgetown University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities and Special Olympics Explore how play builds connection and belonging for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) through the voices of families. In partnership with Special Ol...

03/06/2026

Last month, the National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety (NCHBHS) hosted a one-day Mental Wellness Symposium and community of practice experience, bringing together 236 attendees dedicated to promoting mental health in Head Start programs across the country.

This event drew a high level of engagement and positive feedback shared by participants throughout the day and in the subsequent weeks. The symposium was designed to equip Head Start champions with meaningful, actionable strategies — from fostering a program-wide culture of mental health, to building nurturing and responsive relationships that support children's social and emotional development. Attendees also explored approaches to preventing mental health challenges before they develop, strengthening how staff recognize and respond to children's mental health needs, and connecting families with the mental health supports and interventions that can make a real difference.

We are incredibly proud of the Thrive team members at NCHBHS who came together to make the Mental Wellness Symposium a success! Congratulations to everyone who participated, including Amittia Parker, Neal Horen, Amy Hunter, Kadija Johnston, Julia Sayles, Robert Harris, Lisa Smith, Madeleine Mizelle, Kelli McDermott, Bariah Ahmad, Maria Vazquez Betancourt, and Rashanda Jenkins.

03/05/2026

Eight Therapists for 40,000 Patients

Eight therapists for 40,000 patients. That's the ratio at Dr. Christine Page-Lopez's community health center. So she triages, consults with psychiatrists through the Virginia Mental Health Access Program, and does something else: shifts from telling families what to avoid to asking what's going well. "I get to ask the mom, 'What are you proud about of your 13-year-old sitting next to you?'"

Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Christine Page-Lopez in the latest episode of Thrive Dispatches!

⬇️ Link in the comments!

03/04/2026

🎓 Meet Our Expert: Jalyn Marks

We are excited to spotlight Jalyn Marks, Information Dissemination Coordinator for the Georgetown University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (GUCEDD)! In this role, Jalyn leads and supports a wide range of communication and product development initiatives, with a special focus on accessibility, multimedia products, and dissemination activities centered on individuals with the lived experience of intellectual, developmental, and other disabilities. Jalyn holds a Master of Arts in Communications, Culture & Technology, a foundation that informs and strengthens her work every day.

As a person with a disability, Jalyn brings lived experience to her work and is proud to help create platforms that elevate and amplify the voices of other individuals with disabilities. Jalyn's contributions reflect important values at the heart of the Thrive Center — inclusion, accessibility, and the belief that everyone's story should be told. We are so grateful to have her on our team!

03/03/2026

Children's challenging behaviors are the leading reason one-third of early childhood educators leave each year.

Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) is an intervention proven to cut expulsion rates by up to 47% while reducing teacher burnout and turnover.

The model is recognized in all 50 states and mandated for all Head Start programs. The only problem is, there aren’t enough consultants available to deliver the intervention.

Georgetown has been at the forefront of IECMHC with our Center of Excellence and decades of training and technical assistance. To solve the workforce shortage, our team is llaunching what we think is the most practical, affordable and flexible training program for IECMHC – The Practical Certificate in IECMHC.

The program is designed for mental health clinicians looking to add consultation to their skillset AND for early childhood educators looking to transition from classroom to consultation.

We have 197 spots available in our founding cohort in June at a special discounted rate of $2,500.

⬇️ Learn more on the Thrive Center website (link in comments)

02/27/2026

This week's guest on Thrive Dispatches is Dr. Christine Page-Lopez, the Associate Medical Director at Neighborhood Health community health centers in Northern Virginia and the Virginia Medical Director for Reach Out and Read, who works at the intersection of primary care, community building, and advocacy.

Her patients bring her their mail, forms from school, and paperwork they don't understand. Not because she can help with those things, but because they trust her. Christine decided to go out and visit every elementary school in her clinic's neighborhood, and worked with the City of Alexandria Schools to streamline how pediatricians and school staff communicate. She built relationships with social workers and CASA advocates as part of her work. Listen to the full conversation in the latest episode of Thrive Dispatches!

⬇️ Link in the comments!

02/25/2026

One third of early childhood education teachers leave every year. Challenging behaviors are the #1 reason for turnover. Programs are losing staff who feel unsupported, under-resourced, and feel unequipped to deal with behaviors that are increasing in severity and frequency.

We're collaborating with Head Start programs across the country to do something about it.

Challenging Behaviors and Beyond is a free monthly series for anyone working with kids ages 0-5, featuring national experts alongside Head Start leaders sharing real strategies from the field.

📅 Six sessions starting March 25 at 1:30 PM ET.

👉 Link to register in comments. We hope you can join us!

02/18/2026

🎓 Meet Our Expert: Kalie Kowalski

Meet Kalie Kowalski, who brings valuable expertise to the Thrive Center through her work as the Cultural and Linguistic Competence–Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Professional Development Associate at the Georgetown University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and the National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC). She also serves as the Director of Training for the Georgetown University Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND).

Kalie's work focuses on supporting training initiatives for diverse audiences, including persons with lived experience of disability, practitioners, and organizations that provide supports and services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. She integrates cultural and linguistic competence as evidence-based practice to facilitate systems-level change that enables youth, adolescents, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families to thrive in their communities.

With an interdisciplinary background as a speech language pathologist, early interventionist, and educator, Kalie is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Special Education at the University of Maryland-College Park, further deepening her commitment to advancing the field. Kalie’s passion for equity and systems change makes her an invaluable member of the Thrive Center team!

02/12/2026

"It's easy to break something. It's really hard to build and transform something."

Dr. Sunny Patel describes himself as "an incrementalist with radical feelings," pragmatic about building on what works rather than tearing everything down.

In our conversation, he identified concrete paths forward: leveraging EPSDT (a guaranteed benefit for children on Medicaid) to its full potential, learning from state policy experiments, investing in upstream prevention rather than just crisis intervention.

The first principle: children don't exist in isolation. They only exist in the context of caregivers. How do we wholly support that unit?

That's the paradigm shift this moment calls for.

Full episode: link in comments

Onwards,

Matt Biel

02/10/2026

We are excited to share the Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities 2024–2025 Annual Report - our very first annual report, highlighting a year defined by innovation, growth, and collaboration.

Explore the report and learn more about the partnerships, programs, and innovations supporting children, youth, families, and communities.

⬇️ Link in the comments!

02/05/2026

New episode of Thrive Dispatches: Navigating Federal Policy in Extraordinary Times

Listen to Dr. Matt Biel’s conversation with Dr. Sunny Patel, a child psychiatrist who recently served as Senior Advisor at SAMHSA and as a White House Fellow.

Dr. Patel’s unique understanding of both the clinical realities of caring for children and the policy machinery that shapes what care is possible is an asset to anyone navigating a chaotic funding environment.

Just a few years ago, children's mental health was "maybe the one real bipartisan issue." Sunny describes the current moment differently: "chaos and uncertainty."

What does that mean for children and families? Three interconnected challenges: rhetoric planting doubt about well-established treatments, whipsaw funding that makes planning impossible, and massive Medicaid cuts on the horizon.

🎧 Link in comments.

02/04/2026

We're excited to share a new resource from Thrive team member Emily Aron! As part of her private practice work, Emily developed the "Safer-First Phone Guide," which helps parents navigate their child's phone use through strategies that reduce conflict and protect developing minds.

The guide includes clear comparisons of starter devices, practical setup steps for both Apple and Android, layered guardrails that work automatically and prevent arguments, and family modeling strategies that matter more than rules.

Download the free guide on Emily's website at www.emilyaron.com!