Jillian Vancoughnett is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, engaged in a narrative inquiry into the experiences of parents who have a special needs child in school. Jillian has been a special education teacher for 12 years, taking pride in building meaningful relationships with the families she serves. Jillian has a keen interest in parent engagement, welcoming and hospitality, and the ethics of care within the school community. Jillian is the mother of three young children.

In my proposed research, I will investigate the experiences of parents who seek meaningful and authentic engagement in the school programming of their intensive need for early learners. I am interested in the following questions: How are parents actively engaged in their child’s programming? Who is responsible for engaging parents at the school level and how is this responsibility lived out? How are parents given their rightful place and voice in determining their child’s schooling and education?

Susan Reschny is an educator with 34 years of experience supporting the diverse needs of students, families, pre-service teachers, and colleagues through both classroom and consultative roles. In Susan’s research and work in schools, she invites, incorporates, and advocates for the underrepresented voices of parents and students. Susan completed her doctorate in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in December 2016. 

My name is Mary Ann Linda Young. I speak Plains Cree ‘Y’ dialect and am originally from Onion Lake Cree Nation. I lived with my great grandparents until I was five years old, that is when my great grandfather took me to Saint Anthony’s (Roman Catholic) Indian Residential School to live as a boarder until 1966. My great grandfather, my grandparents, my mother and I (including my siblings) all attended Saint Anthony’s Indian Residential School, four generations, 66 years altogether.

As a Traditional Knowledge Keeper, a friend, a student, an artist, a relative, a mother and grandmother, I have told and retold my Residential School story many times. Sometimes it is hard to share, and other times it doesn’t seem to be hard, but then I feel the pain of the memory days later.

Emma Chen is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, engaged in a narrative inquiry into immigrant children’s heritage language education, in the context of home, community, and school. Originally from China, Emma is an immigrant parent to two young bilingual children who speak both English and Mandarin-Chinese. Every day, Emma walks alongside her little girls exploring the wonderful (and sometimes challenging) worlds of language and culture.

Ted Amendt, MCEd, PhD, has been involved in Saskatchewan’s provincial Kindergarten-Grade 12 and post-secondary education systems for over 20 years. He has had responsibility for community school development in Saskatoon Public Schools; the development of Community Schools and First Nations and Métis education policies and partnerships for the Ministry of Education; adult basic education, skills training and apprenticeship for the Ministry of Advanced Education; and lead on a national research initiative in collaboration with the Canadian Council on Learning. He joined the Saskatchewan School Boards Association in 2013 as a Director with responsibilities for Board Development Services, Strategic Human Resources, and Legal Services. Ted’s doctoral research focuses on community engagement in schools.

Momina Khan, a mother of four children, holds a PhD and MEd in Education from the University of Saskatchewan, an M.Sc in Management Studies, and a B.Sc in Home Economics from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. In life and scholarship, as a mother, poet, scholar, and woman of color, she engages in constructing counter stories through interweaving narrative and poetry. The narratives of her experiences from immigration to citizenship, from multiculturalism to eurocentrism, from parent involvement to parent engagement, and from a racialized mother to a researcher are narratives of gaps, silences, and exclusions shaped in the untapped spaces children and families encounter in schools and curriculum. She strives to re-conceptualize the dominant aspects of mandated curriculum by decentering the Eurocentric perspective, knowledge, and content. She challenges curriculum makers, educators, and teachers that there are alternative perspectives of knowing worthy of inclusion. Dr. Khan has published several peer reviewed articles, book chapters and poems pertaining to the topics of racialized parents and students positioning, knowledge, voice, and rights. Her work invites schools and educators to become leaders in eradicating barriers to racialized students’ sense of self, sense of hybridity, sense of belonging, and sense of citizenhood.

I am currently an Associate Professor at the College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan. I am also a Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) in adolescent mental health. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Nursing and a PhD Education Administration from the University of Saskatchewan. I teach in the area of adolescent mental health, individual and group counseling, interprofessional practice and leadership and school health in context of the role of a mental health nurse in schools.

My clinical practice and research involves working in schools with adolescents with developmental disabilities regarding sexual health education. I also have a great interest and curiosity regarding "Mothering". To satisfy this curiosity, I use autoethnography as methodology to explore the normative discourse of mothering in the context of my own experiences as a mom.