2025 SAI Pre-Conference — Revealing Blindspots

Pre-Conference: Revealing Blindspots — Overlooked Strategies to Increase Engagement and Reduce Oppositional Behavior

Up to 30% of students struggle with mental health challenges. Whether they’re running out of a class, not doing their homework, disrupting others, or quietly disengaging, their behavior is often misread and misdiagnosed. Heroic special and general education teachers are facing this challenge with virtually no training in mental health and behavioral principles. Administrators are often in the difficult position of mentoring distressed special education teams who are struggling to support a student with mental health challenges. Through case studies, humorous stories, and common challenging situations, this workshop will translate clinical information into easy-to-implement strategies for reducing student anxiety and negative thinking, while increasing self-regulation skills. By empowering teams with effective, clinically-sound strategies, administrators can help build school and district capacity for this ever-increasing population of students.

About the presenter:

Jessica Minahan, Ph.D., BCBA, LABA, is a licensed and board-certified behavior analyst, author, special educator, and consultant to schools internationally.  Since 2000 she has worked with students who struggle with mental health issues and challenging behavior in public school systems.  She specializes in training staff and creating behavior intervention plans for students who demonstrate explosive and unsafe behavior. She also works with students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, anxiety disorders, trauma histories, and Autism. Her particular interest is to serve these students by combining behavioral interventions with a comprehensive knowledge of best practices for those with complex mental health profiles and learning needs.

She is a blogger on The Huffington Post, the author of The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students with Nancy Rappaport (Harvard Education Press, 2012), and the author of The Behavior Code Companion: Strategies, Tools, and Interventions for Supporting Students with Anxiety-Related or Oppositional Behaviors (Harvard Education Press, 2014).

She holds a Ph.D. in Education from Lesley University, a BS in Intensive Special Education from Boston University, and a dual master’s degree in Special Education and Elementary Education from Wheelock College. She has a certificate of graduate study (CGS) in teaching children with Autism from the University of Albany and received her BCBA training from Northeastern University in Boston. She is sought-after internationally to speak on subjects ranging from effective interventions for students with anxiety to supporting hard-to-reach students in full-inclusion public school settings.

This pre-conference can be bundled with two other qualifying SAI events for a licensure renewal credit.

Cancellation Policy for the 2025 Pre-Conference and Annual Conference

• July 27 for Pre-Conference

Email SAI or call 515-267-1115 to let us know if you're unable to attend.