Julie Beem is ATN's Executive Director, but more importantly she's a therapeutic mom with two decades of experience. Julie sought out information, resources, and support from ATN clear back in 1999, and has been involved with the organization ever since. She volunteered as the Communications and Outreach person starting in 2004 and became the organization's Executive Director in 2009.

                             Julie is passionate about helping parents to understand the impact of trauma on the development of their children's brains and the impact of living with toxic stress on everyone's brains, including us parents. It was the knowledge of this brain science coupled with interventions that helped her daughter's brain to cool that really helped Julie shift her own thinking to become more therapeutic and helped her daughter take giant strides on the road to healing. 

Stephanie Garde volunteered with ATN for 9 years and was a Board Member before becoming the Operations Manager in 2018. She and her husband are parents to two sons, one by adoption and one by birth. Their experience with trauma and attachment issues started when they adopted a 5 year old boy from state custody in 1999. Two years of struggle later, Stephanie saw a Law and Order episode that explained her son’s behaviors. Using the internet and this new term “attachment,” the Garde family started on the journey to heal. With the help of trauma-sensitive attachment-focused therapy, their son is now 26. While he continues to struggle with the effects of early childhood trauma and neglect, he has graduated from high school and completed a vocational training program at a community college.  He is living independently and works full-time. She is so proud of her son’s commitment to working to understand how his early-childhood trauma impacts his life.

Stephanie graduated from the University of Rhode Island and Vermont Law School. Formerly a disability attorney, Stephanie retired her license to be available full-time for her son’s needs. She is finding ways to help ATN, herself, and her community. Stephanie feels that ATN gives parents a place to be themselves. She works to remind ATN members of the bond we all have as parents and caregivers.

Responsible for much of the behind-the-scenes administration of ATN, Lorraine is an experienced administrator, bookkeeper and business manager.

“Trying to parent my daughter, I thought I was going crazy and posted basically that on another adoption support forum. Thankfully, someone there recommended that I turn to ATN.” This is how Lorraine Schneider, ATN’s Board President, describes how she found ATN. “Joining ATN’s Little Zebra’s online support group, I found others just like me and felt at home at last.”

It wasn’t long after Lorraine found ATN via the internet that she and hubby, Chris, found their way to an ATN conference. They learned a lot, had a very good time, and enjoyed some much-needed respite. It was then that Lorraine began volunteering her many support and business talents to ATN.

Lorraine is mom to three, two sons and their youngest, a daughter, adopted from foster care, who struggles with severe attachment and trauma issues.  

Tiffany Sudela-Junker is a mother by adoption to two children with vastly different trauma-based special needs. Her award-winning documentary, “My Name Is Faith” captures the Junker’s early journey, coming to terms with the impact their daughter’s difficult beginning would have on them all. With her own growth process as an example, Tif mentors and advocates for an “empathy + connection before correction” approach to parenting. Stressing EXTRA empathy, mindfulness, humor, attunement, self-compassion, and reciprocal atonement as key ingredients to helping tough kids achieve higher function and healthy relationships. Through stories of struggle and lessons learned with her brilliant, challenging and hilarious children, Tif raises awareness and an authentic understanding of the EXTREME neurology, behavior, circumstances, and the emotional strength found in families struggling to overcome the aftermath of childhood trauma. Selected as an 2017 Angels in Adoption Award recipient by Senator Patty Murray (WA), Tif is a board member and the Parenting Program Director for the Attachment & Trauma Network, a community of therapeutic parents creating trauma-sensitive schools, building awareness about the lasting impact of trauma and empowering parents to facilitate recovery and help build resilience with their children. In addition, Tif is on the Leadership Committee for Kitsap Strong, a collective impact initiative with a mission to help all people flourish through an emphasis on empowerment and equity, educational attainment, the prevention of Adverse Childhood Experiences/toxic stress, and the building of resilience & hope.

Sarah  is a therapeutic parent of five adopted children who are all siblings and are now all adults. She is currently the founder and CEO of the National Association of Therapeutic Parents and the Managing Director of Inspire Training Group, UK, which runs the only nationally accredited diploma in therapeutic parenting. Sarah qualified as a social worker in 1990 and went on to work as a social worker and manager in local authority children's services, subsequently running a group of children's residential specialist facilities.

She has written a number of therapeutic parenting publications, three of which were number-one bestsellers on Amazon—The A - Z of Therapeutic Parenting, Therapeutic Parenting in a Nutshell, and William Wobbly and the Very Bad Day, which is part of a series of children's books. She also owned and ran a very successful therapeutic fostering agency, awarded an outstanding grade by the government inspectorate due to the success of [the] therapeutic methods that were used, mainly acknowledging the impact of attachment difficulties and providing effective support around attachment.

Sarah commissioned Bristol University to carry out the first-ever comprehensive research into compassion fatigue in foster care. This groundbreaking research was published in September of 2016 and informed government policy.