Visions of Community
Saturday, March 10, 2012
World Trade Center - Boston

Dan Habib is the creator of Including Samuel and the new film Who Cares About Kelsey? Habib is the Filmmaker in Residence at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire.

Including Samuel was broadcast nationwide on public television stations in Fall 2009. The film has been screened at universities, national conferences and independent theatres across the country. Including Samuel has also been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered", "Good Morning America", as well as in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. The film won the Positive Images in Media award from TASH, an international group committed to the full inclusion of people with disabilities. The DVD is now available with 17 language translations, closed captioning and audio description.

Until joining UNH in April of 2008, Habib was the photography editor of the Concord (NH) Monitor. In 2006 and 2008, he was named the national Photography Editor of the Year for papers with a circulation under 100,000. He has been a judge of the Pulitzer Prizes, Pictures of the Year, Best of Photojournalism and White House News Photographer's Association. He is a six-time New Hampshire photographer of the year and his freelance work, including extensive documentary work in China, has appeared in numerous publications, including Time, Newsweek, Yankee, Life and the New York Times.

Habib and his wife, Betsy, live in Concord, New Hampshire, with their sons Isaiah, 15, and Samuel, 12.

Watch a preview of Who Cares About Kelsey?...

Who Cares About Kelsey? preview from Institute on Disability on Vimeo.

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Mary Watson Avery, M.S, coordinates professional development and training activities at Connected Beginnings Training Institute. Her career has focused on infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families. Her special interests include the professional development of individuals working with families; the play of typical and traumatized children; therapeutic parent education; and the mentoring of early childhood trainers. She has been a teacher, administrator and consultant in several urban early childhood programs in New York City and the greater Boston area. Mary has also served on the faculty at Harvard Graduate School of Education and was the Director of Family Connections, a community mental health outreach program based at Children's Hospital Boston.

Since joining the Connected Beginnings team Mary has focused her efforts on planning trainings and mentoring groups across the state. Mary co-authored the curriculum The Foundations of the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) Pyramid Model (2010, Avery, Anthony, Leutz, McCracken, O'Neill & Robey) and has coordinated the roll-out of this course in all six regions of Massachusetts. As a member of the Massachusetts Master Cadre of Pyramid Model Trainers and Coaches, Mary has been trained in all aspects of CSEFEL implementation: Train-the-Trainer, Train-the-Coach, Program-Wide Implementation and the CSEFEL Family Modules.

In addition to The Foundations of the CSEFEL Pyramid Model curriculum, Mary is an author of The Family Connections Materials (Avery, Beardslee, Ayoub & Watts), the Tell Me A Story Materials (Avery, Beardslee, Ayoub, Callejas & Watts), as well as several articles for Zero to Three and other early childhood and mental health publications. Mary earned an MS in Infant and Toddler Studies from Wheelock College and a BFA from Manhattanville College in Studio Art. She also co-authored and illustrated the children's book, What Is Beautiful? (1995, Tricycle Press) with her husband David M. Avery.

Mary will discuss the interplay between her professional and personal experiences. She will share reflections on how her work with families and as a trainer of educators has affected and been affected by her experience parenting her oldest son, who has an anxiety disorder.