Bangkok Deep Dive Workshop
Notice, Listen, Act: Safeguarding Students with Autism and Other Disabilities
Date: TBA
Time: TBA
Workshop Description
Children with Autism and other disabilities experience significantly higher rates of abuse, yet safeguarding education, reporting pathways, and response practices are not always designed with their needs in mind. How can we ensure every student has access to both protective experiences and positive support?
This highly interactive three-hour deep dive moves from hearts and minds to skills and practice. Through activities, reflection, peer discussion, real-world scenarios, practice and application, participants will explore vulnerability and protection—including the role of Positive
Childhood Experiences and accessible safeguarding practices.
Participants will practice reducing reporting barriers, adapting safeguarding and consent education, and responding to different ways students communicate concerns. We will also explore how differences in understanding boundaries and consent can lead some students to be perceived as perpetrators—and how explicit teaching and early intervention can protect everyone involved.
Participants will apply the learning to their own school contexts and leave equipped to:
- NOTICE — Recognize vulnerability and barriers to protection.
- LISTEN — Respond to different ways students communicate concerns or disclose harm.
- ACT — Reduce barriers, adapt safeguarding education, and increase access to protective experiences.
Being a trusted adult for vulnerable students sometimes means we need to notice more carefully, listen differently, and act intentionally.
About this Deep Dive Speaker
Priscilla Leighton is an inclusion and safeguarding consultant and founder of Grace & Grow. With more than 20 years of experience as a special educator, student support leader, school administrator, trainer, and consultant, her work sits at the intersection of disability, education, and child safeguarding. As a former Director of Student Support Services and Designated Safeguarding Lead, she brings both student-level and systems-level experience in supporting students with disabilities and developing effective safeguarding practices.
Priscilla holds a Master’s degree in Special Education and a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Azusa Pacific University and is a licensed California Educational Specialist. She serves on the advisory boards of SENIA and ISLES. Her combined experience in disability and safeguarding enables her to help counselors move beyond awareness to practical actions that reduce barriers, strengthen protection, and help ensure all students are heard.
