Webinar, June 26th, 2026, with the Massachusetts’ Department of Developmental Services Autism Team’s Neurodiversity Series Training Sessions. * Author, educator, and autistic self-advocate Gyasi Burks-Abbott will discuss the role of lived experience in disability advocacy and leadership.
* Gyasi will trace his journey from relying on the advocacy of his mother to being able to advocate for himself as well as others.
* He will also talk about the power of the personal story in driving systems change.
Gyasi Burks-Abbott, MS, is on the faculty of the LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities) Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and UMass Boston’s Institute for Community Inclusion. He serves on the boards, committees, and commissions of many autism and disability organizations; and he’s written for several autism and disability-related publications. Gyasi graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN with a BA in English and psychology, and he has an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons University in Boston. Gyasi tells the story of how he became an autism self-advocate in his autobiography/memoir titled My Mother’s Apprentice: An Autistic’s Rites of Passage.
Registration is required
