2024 Stronger Together Conference

Edwin is the husband to Julie a reading teacher in Santa Maria and is the father of Ean- a full time EMT, Grace a police officer in Sacramento with her fiancé Zach who is also a police officer and Jake a family support specialist in the medical field and Jake’s fiancé Cait who is the Chief of staff for Assemblywoman Papan. Edwin Weaver is the Executive Director of Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley. Edwin earned a MSW from UCLA and a Masters in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine’s Caruso School of Law. Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley was just awarded Non-Profit of the year by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce. There are 55 full time employees that work at FBSMV. FBSMV believes that the number one thing children need are adults who care for them and can model what it means to be a kind person in the community. Edwin is also a senior Faculty at the Trauma Resource Institute where he teaches the Community Resiliency Model. FBSMV has been providing Restorative Justice based Mediation in the local schools since 2014 and most recently contracted to provide it in Juvenile Hall and in the community as both an adult and juvenile diversion program. Edwin is also part- time faculty at Allan Hancock Community College where he teaches at Lompoc Federal Penitentiary in the evenings.

Shawna Rader Kelly is a nationally certified school psychologist in Bozeman, Montana where she serves as the school psychologist at Bozeman High School and leads the district’s crisis response team. In her daily work she is actively involved in providing direct and indirect services to students, implementing multi-tiered systems of support, and supporting program evaluation in her building and district. In addition to her full-time work as a school psychologist, Shawna has worked as an adjunct professor at Montana State University and as a consultant for the Montana Office of Public Instruction, providing training to schools implementing multi-tiered systems of support. She serves as her state’s Credentialing Resource Specialist and chairs the state’s Credentialing and Professional Standards Board. With colleagues, she has worked to secure annual grants to support supervision of school psychology students and interns, support recruitment and retention efforts in the state of Montana, and to provide an annual training institute for prospective supervisors. Shawna is a frequent presenter at the state and national levels on topics such as mental and behavioral health services, MTSS implementation, threat assessment, school safety and crisis response, and professional supervision. An active volunteer leader, Shawna is a past-president and current committee chair for her state association, past Delegate to NASP, and former NASP Delegate Representative. She currently serves on the NASP Board of Directors as the Strategic Liaison for Professional Advocacy. In 2017, Shawna was recognized as the NASP School Psychologist of the Year.