Date: February 11, 2026 - 8:30am-4:30pm
Registration opens at 8:00am
Breakfast and Lunch included
Location: Club Roma (125 Vansickle Rd. St. Catharines, ON)
Free Parking!
Keynote Speaker
Dani Bowman, MBA Global Strategy & Leadership, BFA Animation
Dani Bowman is an autistic entrepreneur, animator, educator, and speaker, and the founder of DaniMation.US—an animation studio and training program supporting autistic and neurodivergent creatives. She has taught animation to over 3,500 students and premiered 16 original animated short films at San Diego Comic-Con. Dani earned her BFA in Animation and her MBA in Global Strategy & Leadership. As a cast member on Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum U.S., Dani uses her platform to advocate for inclusion and empower others to turn passion into possibility.
Conference Overview
People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities are at greater risk of experiencing sexual violence and exploitation. This conference explores the importance of inclusive, person-centered sexual health education and support for individuals with disabilities. Participants will learn evidence-informed approaches to fostering healthy relationships, bodily autonomy, consent, and safety.
Emphasizing dignity, rights, and trauma-informed practice, it will offer practical strategies for empowering individuals, supporting caregivers and staff, and creating environments where sexual wellness is understood as a key component of overall quality of life.
Abstracts:
Please choose your top 3 preferences during registration:
The What, The Why and The How: Supporting people with Sexual Self Advocacy and Education. (Candice Keem, Inclusion West Niagara)
In this session, participants will have an opportunity to learn about the What, Why and the How as it pertains to inclusive sex education and support. We will discuss what inclusive healthy sexual support looks like, why it is important, and how we can support people with their sexuality. We will also be addressing challenging issues, concerns and provide recourses for caregivers and people who receive support.
The How: (Candice Keem, Inclusion West Niagara)
In this session, participants who attended The What, The Why and The How: Supporting people with Sexual Self Advocacy and Education session, will have an opportunity to engage in more detailed conversations and activities that will provide examples of how to facilitate activities and resources used to support people with sexual advocacy and education.
Healthy vs Unhealthy Relationships workshop for individuals with IDD (Deanna Djos, Montage Supports)
This workshop will help people understand what makes a relationship safe, respectful, and supportive—and how to spot red flags when things aren’t okay. We’ll talk about trust, communication, boundaries, and how to treat others (and be treated) with kindness.
Importance of Abuse Prevention (Ashley Curtis, MacKenzie Health)
Teaching Skills for Safer Choices. Discussing the QAM, preventative skills, increasing safety and self advocacy. We can incorporate the 3 TALK tools, how professionals can use them to assess current skills and needs. Teaching skills to help to increase independence skills, safety, healthy relationship skills and overall wellness that all align with the abuse prevention framework.
Navigating Adult Content (Cait Donaldson (she/her) and Shay Bramer (he/they), Safe Hub, Salvation Army)
This course will be taught over the course of 3-4 weeks focusing on various important topics to understand when navigating adult content. NAC will discuss what porn is, the importance of being able to identify public vs private settings, myth busting, and internet safety. We will discuss potential positives and negatives to watching porn, porn and the law, and the importance of consent, common themes in porn, sex work, the importance of safety regarding chatting with people online, and sex-trafficking. Content has been created to support inclusive access.
Sexual Offending Behaviour (Sam Tullo & Katherine Sanderson)
This presentation will focus on the basic understanding of inappropriate sexual behavior and how that can intersect with the Criminal Justice System for those with intellectual or developmental disability. This presentation is intended to provide an overview of how caregivers and support staff can assist individuals in navigareting the Criminal Justice System and beyond when charged with sexual offending behaviour. There will be a focus on knowing your limits of support as caregivers, support staff and family members, provide strategies to support someone with inappropriate sexual behavior, as well as an introduction to compassion fatigue strategies for caregivers, support staff and family members.
