Meet your speakers
Lucy AitkenRead
Rewilding our livelihood: Why unschooling parents make amazing entrepreneurs
Partner, parent, surfing obsessive, anarchist, advocate, in no particular order. Lucy has spent the last decade unschooling her children, creating an alternative, off-grid life, making a living as a writer, digital creator and respectful parenting advocate. Lucy created Disco—the original unschooling course that has helped almost a thousand parents de-programme from School Fixated Society. By applying a deschooling lens to her livelihood Lucy grew a six figure business from her solar powered yurt. Along the way she has learnt some lessons about business that she feels she should have been taught 30 years ago. So now she is here to make sure healers, artists, tea-growers, coaches and every other woman is ready to contribute to this new era. With two degrees in social policy, trained in transformational coaching (Joanna Lindenbaum, 2020), neurobiological healing protocols (Havening, 2022), and inner child work (Robin Grille, 2017) Lucy is stirring it all together into matriarchal remedies for unschoolers and rebel entrepreneurs.
Bria Bloom
From unschooled to unschool advocate
Bria is a born and raised unschooler. Her experience in directing her own learning led her to become an advocate for Self-Directed Education (SDE), youth liberation, and partnership parenting. The unschooling and deschooling world was her gateway into a whole lot of questioning—realizing that the systems that try to define our lives, and “school” us, are not limited to just school. She also loves to engage and play as an SDE facilitator and parent. She is an unschooling mother of two (a teenager and a toddler); co-founder of Flying Squads; a writer; a facilitator and founder of PDX Flying Squads, a community for self-directed young people in Portland, OR; co-host/co-creator of the Rethinking Self-Directed Education podcast; and has been working with the international advocacy group, Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE) for over seven years.
Leslie W. Bray
Intentional living: The core of an unschooled life
Leslie is an award-winning educator, a community organizer, and founder of Kid Cultivators Homeschool Community, an intentional community for homeschooling and unschooling families in the Atlanta metro area. She was the first Presence Counselor with the Raising Free People Network, offering guidance to parents looking to do the personal leadership work involved in deschooling. Leslie mentors leaders and facilitators who wish to foster emotionally intelligent, harm-reducing community spaces. She offers practical, experienced based models and solutions for those just beginning and brave space for those who have been doing it a while to refresh and deepen their understandings.
Iris Chen
From Tiger Mom to unschooler: Decolonizing education through self-directed learning
Iris Chen is an unschooling mother, certified parenting coach, and founder of the Untigering movement. When her authoritarian attempts to raise obedient and high-achieving children only led to years of tears, tantrums, and conflict, she knew something had to change… and it wasn’t her children. Through her writing and speaking, Iris now shares her healing journey of shifting from power-over to power-with in her relationship with her children. Her mission is to inspire generational and cultural transformation through conscious parenting, self-directed learning, and decolonization, especially among Asian communities. You can read more about her adventures in her book Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent and on her blog.
Melissa Crockett-Joyoue
But that’s not unusual! Discovering your own neurodivergence as you unschool neurodivergent kids
Melissa lives in Aotearoa (New Zealand), is Māori, AuDHD and the mama of two unschooled neurodivergent children. Her experience with understanding and meeting their needs deepened her commitment to helping others on a similar path. Melissa is the founder of Weave ND, an online membership community dedicated to neurodivergent unschooling families. She is especially passionate about working with neurodivergent parents and Indigenous families on their unschooling journeys.
Domari Dickinson
Bridging worlds: Supporting your unschooler's choice to explore conventional school
Domari Dickinson is a magic-making, joy-bringing, cycle-breaking, love-filled, liberation-minded disruptor. Her four children experience this through their family’s conscious parenting and unschooling adventures. Her coaching clients experience this through her specialized programs and services that invite them to identify their oppressive parenting practices while co-creating more liberatory, love-centered practices and spaces that center freedom, respect, and autonomy. Other people in the world experience this through the work she does as a board member for the Alliance for Self-Directed Education, through her fun-filled, high-energy math tutoring sessions, and her IG account that’s a compilation of educational, entertaining, and inspirational content. Prior to becoming an unschooling parent, Domari had a long career in teaching and education. Her positions ranged from math teacher to director of mathematics, working as an instructional specialist providing professional development to teachers and leadership teams and as an educational consultant.
You can also attend the live interactive 'Decolonising Unschooling' workshop with Domari on Day 3.
Amanda Diekman
Learning through screens: From fear to confidence and connection
Amanda Diekman is an autistic adult, parent coach, and author in the neurodiversity space. Amanda became a leading voice in the movement for low demand parenting practices, with her book Low Demand Parenting, published July 2023. Amanda runs a successful coaching practice for parents of neurodivergent children, including online courses and a vibrant membership community. She lives with her husband and three neurodivergent children in an intentional community in Durham, NC.
Lehla & Anthony Eldridge-Rogers
Insights and strategies for a strong and supportive partnership
Lehla and Anthony Eldridge-Rogers are alternative education and unschooling advocates and coaches for parents interested in exploring revisionist ways of living and learning with their children. They co-authored Jump Fall Fly, from Schooling to Homeschooling to Unschooling, written to support parents in raising free-thinking, confident, resilient, empowered children in our dramatically fast-changing world. Jump Fall Fly draws extensively on their own experience of raising three children, now adults, almost entirely outside of the conventional education system. Lehla and Anthony’s next book will be published in 2025 and proposes that if humans wish to create a fairer, more equal, conflict-free and collaborative future within the context of the challenges we face, then we need to radically revise parenting of our children. Lehla is a published author, Illustrator and performer. Anthony has a background in the media industries of film and TV, and is now an executive coach and coach trainer specialising in behavioural and mental health.
Pat Farenga
Keeping the legacy of John Holt alive
Patrick Farenga is deeply connected to the legacy of the renowned educator John Holt, and Farenga’s work is marked by his unwavering commitment to empowering learners. John Holt founded Growing Without Schooling magazine in 1977, a seminal publication that ushered in a radical shift in perceptions of education beyond the confines of traditional school settings. Pat joined GWS in 1981 and, following Holt's passing in 1985, assumed the mantle of leadership, shepherding the magazine through a transformative era until it ceased publication in 2001. A prolific writer and publisher, Pat's contributions span a diverse array of genres, from speeches and books to articles and videos, enriching the discourse on homeschooling and unschooling. Pat preserves and disseminates Holt's works, ensuring that his revolutionary ideas continue to shape the educational landscape for generations to come. Recent titles such as Teach Your Own (Hachette, 2021) and Growing Without Schooling, Vol. 5 (HoltGWS, 2023) exemplify his ongoing commitment to advancing self-directed and child-centered learning practices.
Naomi Fisher
How to help your teen recover from burnout
Naomi is a clinical psychologist, EMDR-Europe accredited trainer and author of Changing Our Minds and A Different Way to Learn. Her work brings psychological theory and evidence-based practice together with real life clinical experience and open curiosity, and she pushes for new ways to understand difference and to include voices which go unheard. The thread that ties her work together is her willingness to take a step outside the conventional and to challenge the status quo, even when others disagree. She is passionate about helping children learn and grow in whatever way works best for them. She writes regularly on psychology, self-directed education, parenting and related issues and runs webinars for parents on low demand parenting and mental health.
Kirsty Forbes
Honouring our intuition as parents and carers
Kristy Forbes is an Australian-based educator with a focus on Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Drawing on her lived experience as an autistic person with ADHD and a PDA profile, as well as being a school-avoidant individual who now home educates her own neurodivergent children, Kristy offers unique insight into the challenges faced by PDA individuals and their families. Combining her background in education, behavioural support, and family advocacy with personal experiences of trauma, burnout, addiction, homelessness, and systemic misunderstanding, she provides compassionate support through her programs, webinars, and public speaking, all aimed at empowering and understanding those with PDA and related trauma.
Sari Gonzalez & Becka Koritz
How unschooling empowers young people: Rights, consent and autonomy
Sari González, director of Explora Agile Learning Community and co-founder of Radical Learning, is a passionate advocate for youth liberation and rights, educator, experienced parent coach, and facilitator trainer known for her clear, practical focus and dedication to intentional culture creation within the self-directed education movement. Leaving the corporate world to advocate for youth agency, she has spent the last 20 years humanizing education through initiatives like Summer Search, Farm School NYC, and Cottonwood NYC. Becka Koritz is a visionary and innovative educator with over 30 years of experience, including 25 years of training teachers. Growing up in the Montessori public school in Sweden, she has since founded two Waldorf initiatives and Explora, an Agile Learning Center in Mexico. As a co-founder of Radical Learning, she supports parents and educators in fostering young people’s learning, autonomy and agency. Becka is a leading voice in the self-directed education movement in Latin America, and a dedicated youth rights advocate. She is Sweden’s main advocate against mandatory schooling, defending kids’ right to diverse educational alternatives. She authored the Swedish book A School from Scratch (2016).
Peter Gray
What has caused the rise in anxiety among US kids? (It's not smartphones or social media)
Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College who has conducted and published research in behavioral biology, developmental psychology, anthropology, and education. He is author of an internationally acclaimed introductory psychology textbook (Psychology, Worth Publishers, editions 1-6), which views all of psychology from an evolutionary perspective. Much of his research focuses on the role of play in human evolution and how children educate themselves through play and exploration, when they are free to do so. He has expanded on these ideas in his book, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books), which has been translated into 18 languages. He also authors a blog called Freedom to Learn, for Psychology Today magazine and a Substack series entitled Play Makes Us Human. He is one of the founders of the nonprofit Let Grow, the mission of which is to renew children’s freedom to play and explore independently of adult control. You can follow him on Facebook and find many of his published articles on his website..
Elspeth Hetrick
Why co-regulation is essential for neurodivergent unschooling joy
Elspeth Hetrick is an ADHD/Autistic graduate of the University of Michigan, majoring in anthropology, (minoring in sociology, psychology, and women's studies). She has a degree in early childhood development, 20+ years professional experience with kids of all ages, and Conscious Discipline certification. She began ‘Neurodivergent Parenting: Think Outside The Box’, on Facebook during the pandemic, and it now reaches up to eight million readers a month. She is featured in Kelley Coleman's book, Everything No One Tells You About Parenting A Disabled Child. Elspeth has two children, who are also Autistic /ADHD, and who cope with additional needs for ARFID, F-pies, PDA, Giftedness, and Dyslexia. Elspeth has been unschooling for five years and loves the way it has improved the entire family's mental health, social skills, literacy, practical mathematics, and entrepreneurship. Some of her favorite ways to learn are roadside paleontology, nature hikes, and interactive museums.
Zakiyya Ismail
Why intersectional unschooling
Zakiyya Ismail is a mother of three adults who have never been to school—because well, there was no need. For over 25 years, she’s been experimenting with the idea that living and learning can be free! Zakiyya has spent her days building a community with unschooling families treading a similar path, and reflecting on how freedom in education intersects with decolonisation, social change, and social justice. She has organised two international conferences and multiple regional events. She sometimes speaks at unschooling events and also found herself talking about unschooling on the TEDx stage. She firmly stands by her motto that if our social justice lens excludes children, it’s bullshit. She is currently completing her Master’s in Clinical Psychology and has a special interest in neurodiversity.
Esther Jones
How to turn the challenges into opportunities for connection and growth
Esther is a UK-based mindfulness teacher, deschooling coach and mother of three unschooled children. Like so many others, she had never considered any option other than school—the path to unschooling came as the slow and natural result of moving away from all the things that weren't working for her children and family. Esther has written extensively about her own deschooling experience and all the ways in which her children challenged her thinking, in her blog A Place on a Hill, which she started in 2018. Since 2021, she has hosted the bi-weekly podcast, The Unschool Space, in which she explores unschooling with other unschooling parents from around the world. Her book, The Parent’s Handbook to Unschooling Yourself, will be published in August, 2025. .
Pam Laricchia
Why a strong relationship is always the foundation for learning
Pam Laricchia began her unschooling journey more than 20 years ago. She's the author of five books about unschooling, the founding host of the Exploring Unschooling podcast (with more than 350 episodes in its archive), and co-host of the Living Joyfully Network online community. Over the years, Pam has helped countless parents cultivate strong, connected, and trusting relationships with their children and partners as they navigate both the joys and challenges of their days.
Erich Leidums
The magic of risky play and why it's beneficial for our children
Erich Leidums is an unschooling father of children living in the Canadian Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. Erich works as paramedic and a content creator where he and his family have amassed over a million followers across all platforms documenting their outdoor adventurous lifestyle. Although much of the content is aimed to inspire others to get outside and spend more time with their kids, Erich doesn't shy away from sharing their seemingly unique unschooling approach, diving into many of the nuances of what unschooling is, what it isn't and how it benefits his children. Before becoming a parent, Erich worked for 10 years as an outdoor educator, spending time with children of all ages leading outdoor expeditions. His love of the outdoors and dedication as a father has created an active, adventurous lifestyle that includes a journey of life-long learning.
Lainie Liberti
Embracing partnership parenting with your self-directed teen
Lainie Liberti is a prominent figure in alternative education, youth empowerment, and mental health advocacy, especially for teenagers. Based in Guanajuato, Mexico, she is an experienced facilitator, best-selling author, speaker, and certified life coach. She has spent over 13 years creating and leading immersive learning experiences, international retreats, and programs that foster socioemotional growth and mental well-being for teens. She co-founded Project World School, a platform that provides immersive retreats for teens, blending travel, immersive learning, and community building. Additionally, she developed virtual mentoring programs to support young people in navigating life's challenges. Lainie is also the creator of the Partnership Parent Movement, which promotes a collaborative and empathetic approach to parenting. Her best-selling book, Seen, Heard & Understood: Parenting and Partnering with Teens for Greater Mental Health, explores this philosophy, offering strategies to help parents nurture autonomy, self-regulation, and mutual respect in their relationships with their teens.
Chemay Morales-James
The importance of healing in community from colonial education and living.
Chemay Morales-James is a Boricua (Puerto Rican) mother of two vivacious kids who have been unschooled all their lives. She is the founder and space holder of My Reflection Matters Village and also a recovering school teacher and DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) coach turned SDE organizer. In 2020, she launched a liberation-centered, digital co-learning community called My Reflection Matters Village (expanding from their physical co-learning community in Connecticut). MRM Village is a space to support socially conscious parents and educators navigating liberation-centered, self-directed education and parenting. As an independent consultant, she provides direct support for educational institutions and non-profits serving youth and families looking to create equitable and/or liberatory systems and practices. She supports people creating physical or digital co-learning BIPOC communities. Chemay is an experienced anti-racist educator and facilitator (20 years), who lives and breathes liberation work.
Heidi Steel
Living outside the box: Unapologetically unstandardised
Heidi Steel is the founder of Live Play Learn, providing resources and community for unschooling families. With over 15 years of hands-on experience as a home-educating, unschooling parent of four, Heidi shares a practical, down-to-earth approach to child-centred learning. Heidi’s work is rooted in the belief that children learn best when they are trusted and given the space to follow their natural curiosity. She helps parents step away from traditional education systems, offering guidance and reassurance to create learning environments that truly work for their families. Through her writing, workshops, speaking events and podcast, Heidi encourages parents to see education as a journey to be shared; one that builds connection, trust, and a lifelong love of learning. When she’s not speaking or writing, you’ll often find Heidi drinking tea, knitting something full of errors and embracing the small joys of everyday life alongside her children.
Meghan Suniga-Davies
Unschooling, isolation and when our children seem uninterested in everything!
Meghan is a mixed race chicana mother of grown and teen unschoolers, currently living in Austin, Texas. She’s been involved in Self Directed Education (SDE) for many years, raising life-long unschoolers while living in Asia, Europe and USA. They hosted the ‘The Unschool Files Podcast’ for five years while building accessible resources for the community, organizing virtual and in-person groups for unschooling families and youth thru an anti oppressive, intersectional lens. Now partnered with the Alliance for Self Directed Education as a staff person and coordinator, and one half of the ROAM: Teen Travel Collective and reviving the ATX Flying Squad— Meghan is bringing her skills and gifts of connecting people by building relationships to advance the movement of SDE and collective liberation.
You can also attend the live interactive 'Decolonising Unschooling' workshop with Meghan on Day 3.
Dr Emma Svanberg
The courage to step away: How to feel confident in walking away from systems that don't work for you
Dr Emma Svanberg, also known as Mumologist, is an award winning clinical psychologist, author of Parenting For Humans (Vermilion, 2 March 2023), founder of The Psychology Co-operative and co-founder of Make Birth Better CIC. Emma also facilitates a parenting community on Facebook called The Village – A Parenting Community For Humans. She has worked with parents from many diverse communities and has a particular interest in attachment, trauma and the intergenerational roots of our problems.
Jay Williams
How unschooling changed how I view everything
Jae is a former middle school teacher turned unschooling advocate, coach, and proud black father. After years of witnessing the limitations of the traditional education system, Jae dove deep into unschooling, exploring growth, success, and the history of education. He believes that true success is not achieved through rigid standards but through self-directed learning that fosters grit, grace, and happiness. As the main facilitator of his children’s student-led learning journey, he’s passionate about empowering others to embrace a life of limitless potential. Through his YouTube channel, BlackDad, Jae shares his journey of raising thriving individuals while staying open to diverse perspectives on parenting and education. He hopes to inspire others to thrive in their own parenting journeys.
