Robyn Gobbel, LMSW-Clinical, has over 15 years of practice in family and child therapy experience, specializing in complex trauma, attachment, and adoption. Robyn is a therapist, trainer, and consultant who recently relocated to Grand Rapids, MI from Austin, TX.

Robyn's diverse clinical training includes EMDR (including EMDR adapted for children with attachment trauma), Somatic Experiencing, Theraplay, Trust Based Relational Intervention®, Circle of Security Parent Educator, The Alert Program® and Yogapeutics Aerial Yoga Level 1 Teacher Training. Robyn has integrated these training modalities with a foundation of attachment theory and the relational neurosciences to create an attachment-rich, sensory-sensitive, and relational neurosciences supported healing environment for children and families.

Robyn consults, teaches, and trains extensively throughout the US, including previously as an instructor for the Foundations of Interpersonal Neurobiology Certificate Program at Portland Community College. She was an instructor with the Adoptive & Foster Family Therapy Post-Graduate Certificate Program and has served on the working board of the Global Association for Interpersonal Neurobiology Studies (GAINS).

Lyndsey is an experienced paediatric nurse, children’s public health nurse, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Holistic Sleep Coach, researcher and responsive parenting advocate. She has worked in hospitals, clinics, the community and within clients’ homes for 20 years, serving within the UK NHS, in private practice and voluntarily.
The co-founder and clinical director of the Holistic Sleep Coaching program, Lyndsey regularly teaches internationally, as well as providing mentorship for newer sleep coaches. She is passionate about responsive feeding, gentle parenting and promoting parental confidence and well-being.
With Professor Amy Brown, she is the co-founder of Thought Rebellion – an education and publishing company seeking to inspire, challenge and equip professionals and writers in the parenting, lactation and perinatal space with an evidence based revolution.
Lyndsey is currently a PhD researcher at Swansea University, exploring the needs and challenges of medically complex breastfed infants and children. In 2019 she set up the Breastfeeding the Brave project to raise awareness of the unique breastfeeding needs of chronically, critically, and terminally ill children in the paediatric setting. The mother of a childhood cancer survivor, she often talks about the impact of chronic serious illness on families, and seeks to support other families living through a serious childhood illness.
Lyndsey is a respected international speaker and teacher, and regularly speaks out against the dominant sleep training culture, as well as advocating for the rights of families to receive high-quality, compassionate and expert support. She is the author of Holistic Sleep Coaching (2018), Let’s talk about your new family’s sleep (2020), Still Awake (2021), Breastfeeding the Brave (2022) and co-author of The Writing Book (2022).

Katrien Nauwelaerts graduated as a prehistoric archaeologist in 2005. She's the mother of three breastfed children and the administrator of the Dutch breastfeeding-website Borstvoeding Aardig, https://borstvoeding.aardig.be. Katrien worked as a volunteer breastfeeding-counsellor, provincial coordinator and training manager for the Belgian breastfeeding organisation Borstvoeding vzw between 2010-2014. Up tot 2018 she was the founder and president of Aardig Leven vzw, a non profit ecological organisation. In 2013 she became an IBCLC. Since 2013 she's working as a lactation consultant at her own private practice Borstvoeding Aardig. She became a nutritionist and a herborist in 2014. Katrien shares her experiences and knowledge on lactation consulting as a public speaker since 2014.

Helen Ball trained in Human Biology and Biological Anthropology, obtaining her PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1992. She established the Parent-Infant Sleep Lab at Durham University in 2000, was promoted to Professor in 2007 and served as Head of the Anthropology Department 2013-2016.

Her research examines the sleep ecology of infants and their parents including attitudes and practices regarding infant sleep, behavioral and physiological monitoring of infants and their parents during sleep, infant sleep development, and the discordance between cultural sleep preferences and biological sleep needs. She conducts research in hospitals and the community and contributes to national and international policy and practice guidelines on infant care.

In 2016 she was appointed as Chair of the Scientific Committee for the Lullaby Trust, and in 2018 Durham University received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Further and Higher Education for Helen’s research and outreach work. She is a Board Member of ISPID (the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Infant Deaths) and directs the Durham Infancy & Sleep Centre (DISC) and Baby Sleep Information Source (Basis).

Melissa Bartick, MD, MSc, FABM works as a hospitalist at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge MA, is an internist and is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has numerous breastfeeding publications in peer-reviewed journals. She served as the chair of the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition from 2002 to 2014, where she was also a founder of Ban the Bags. She served on the Board of Directors of the United States Breastfeeding Committee from 2009-2015. She has served on the Board of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine since 2019, where she has coauthored clinical protocols, including the 2020 Bedsharing and Breastfeeding protocol. She was founder of the Breastfeeding Forum of the American Public Health Association, where she served two terms as chair. She is founder and co-chair of her state’s Baby-Friendly Hospital Collaborative. She has blog contributions to the Huffington Post, the WBUR CommonHealth Blog, among others. Dr. Bartick received her BA from the University of Virginia and holds an MSc in Health and Medical Sciences from University of California, Berkeley and an MD from University of California, San Francisco. She works as a hospitalist at Mount Auburn Hospital and is the mother of two grown sons. As of June 2020, she is pursuing an MPH at Harvard School of Public Health.

Marianne is a mother of four grown-up, home-birthed and breastfed daughters and granny of five beautiful home-birthed, breastfed grandchildren. After a personal experience with breastfeeding practices in a hospital, she became a volunteer for the Dutch breastfeeding association in 1994 and for many years, she led big groups for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers in her home town.

She became an IBCLC in 2008 and launched her private practice, from which she does consultations, book translations (such as James McKenna’s book ‘Sleeping With Your Baby’ and recently ‘Safe Infant Sleep’, and Jill and Nils Bergman’s book ‘Hold Your Prem’), blogging and writing on youth healthcare, advocating for policies that generously take neurophysiological and sociocultural convictions into account. Translating and avid reading widened Marianne’s insights and field of interest, leading her her to Cultural Anthropology & Development Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and subsequently a master’s degree in Medical Anthropology & Sociology.

Combining several fields, she co-founded the initiative ACE Aware NL early 2020, chiming in with similar movements in Scotland and California, US. The aim is to increase awareness around Adverse Childhood Experiences and their impact on adult health and wellbeing. Now that science abundantly shows the importance of sensitive and responsive parenting for overall health and wellbeing, all sectors in society deserve to know what a world of difference they can make in a child's life if they succeed in incorporating trauma-sensitive approaches . Marianne expects to remain strongly tied to this field for the rest of her life.

Erin is a Parent Educator in Ottawa, Canada and the mother of four young adults, including twins. After working in the area of community mental health as a Registered Social Service Worker, she jumped into Prenatal and Parenting education with the Ottawa Childbirth Education Association where she has been designing and providing classes for expectant parents, grandparents, and families expecting multiples for the last 20 years. She divides her time between teaching a class called Bringing Baby home to expectant parents, Normal Infant Sleep classes and working as a Postpartum Doula. In 2018 she returned to school to complete her M.ed for Healthcare Professionals.

Althea T. Simpson, MBA, MSW, LCSW, RPT-S, is an innovative trainer, psychotherapy private practice owner, founder and President of Unicorn Life Training and the Black Play Therapy Society, and host of the Chronicles of A Play Therapist podcast. She is the author of Hurt to Healing: Child Witnesses of Domestic Violence and Their Invisible Injuries. Althea has a diverse background including research, mental health, and organizational consulting. A Certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator reinforcing a process of creative thinking and problem-solving, Althea facilitates thought-provoking and experiential skill enriching workshops for mental health professionals, corporations, and organizations throughout the United States. Althea’s passion is utilizing the healing powers of play to effect change on an individual and organizational level.

IG: @altheatsimpson

IG: @brickmagicplaytherapy

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unicornlifetraining

Twitter: @altheatsimpson

TikTok: @altheatsimpson

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCexheSp4-M-A-sW5w1aU5eQ

Dr. Hawes provides clinical services in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and at the Perinatal and Postpartum Clinic at the Center for Children and Families at Women & Infants Hospital, where she treats women and their partners experiencing perinatal mood and anxiety issues. Treatment includes individual and family psychotherapy. She is an assistant professor (adjunct) in the Department of Pediatrics at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She trained in adult psychiatry and mental health at the University of Rhode Island and is board certified in adult psychiatric-mental health advanced practice nursing. Her research, clinical work, and lectures focus on stress and trauma related to the premature birth experience. In addition she studies the relationship between nursing practice and parent and infant outcomes; nurse-patient interaction; the healthcare work environment and provider and patient outcomes; and the epigenetics of stress. (https://vivo.brown.edu/display/khawes).

Dr. Ruth Oshikanlu MBE is a multi-award winning nurse, midwife and health visitor. A nurse entrepreneur, consultant, leader and parenting expert, she is passionate about supporting vulnerable children and their families to reduce health inequalities and improve their life outcomes. Her previous roles include: HIV specialist midwife, Family Nurse at one of the first pilot sites of The Family Nurse Partnership intensive home visiting parenting programme for vulnerable families, and Nurse Leader of The Lewisham Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Service.

Ruth is a Pregnancy Mindset Expert and supports pregnant women who have had assisted conception or previous pregnancy loss. She is the author of Tune In To Your Baby: Because Babies Don’t Come with An Instruction Manual.

Ruth is a Queen’s Nurse, Fellow of The Institute of Health Visiting, Royal College of Nursing and The Royal Society of Arts. She is the recipient of several national healthcare and business awards; a regular columnist and has published several feature articles in numerous national nursing and healthcare journals.

Ruth was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year 2019 Honours List for being an Ambassador for the Health Visiting Profession and for services to Community Nursing, Children and Families. She is a Churchill Fellow and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from London South Bank University in November 2019.