Our Mission
Families Like ours offers connection, rejuvenation & support that normalizes the parent caregiver experience and protects them from the well-documented impacts of their caregiver burden.
Our Founder,
Dr. Amanda Leeder
Dr. Amanda Leeder has spent 20 years serving neurodivergent individuals and their families, and in 2020 she earned her doctorate in Applied Developmental Psychology. Amanda is now a parent caregiver to three beautiful neurodivergent children in Portland, Oregon. As a seasoned researcher, educator, advocate, and now parent, Dr. Leeder has a rare and multi-faceted understanding of neurodivergent families and their needs. Amanda is aligned with the mission of Families Like Ours and is fiercely committed to helping the organization achieve its goals.
"I have gotten to know and spend time with Dr. Amanda Leeder over the past few years, as she has attended our parent retreat weekend, both as a professional and a parent, and has participated in our retreat training. I have found Amanda to be a thoughtful and professional presence, engaging productively in our activities, sharing her own experiences, and supporting other parents and professionals at our retreat. Based on these experiences, I can recommend Amanda who brings a rare combination of lived experience, as well as professional training to her services".
Dr. Barry Prizant
Adjunct Professor
Department of Communicative Disorders, College of Health Sciences
University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
Our Board
Jodi Garber-Simon
Jodi Garber-Simon is an accomplished senior-level communications and public relations leader. She has worked as a newspaper reporter on the U.S.-Mexico border, represented New Mexico's credit unions in Washington, DC, and explained oscilloscopes and probes to less-than-technical journalists. Jodi made an award-winning movie about Oregon women in politics, conceptualized and marketed a teen travel program that brought Jewish and Native American teens together in the Southwest United States, and helped USAID tell the story of successful international development programs across the world. Now she is thrilled to help Families Like Ours tell it's unique and inspiring story and gain the attention it deserves.
Dr. Amanda Troillett
Dr. Amanda Troillett is an Occupational Therapist, professor, and parent. She has worked with children and families for the entirety of her career. Clinically, she specializes in sensory integration, ASD, feeding, and visual motor skills. However, for Dr. Troillett, the most essential aspect of therapy is building partnerships with families to promote connection and joy throughout all stages of life and parenting. Personally, her joy comes from family bike rides and kayaking, Legos, and charcuterie-filled game nights with the forever goal of balancing reading, gardening, home projects, and rom coms.
Alison Berkley
Alison is a passionate special educator and expert in the field of Autism. She has spent two decades elevating hearts and minds as to what is possible for the greater disability community. Her career began as a special needs classroom teacher. After gaining experience within the schools, she was driven to develop a new and truly individualized approach to Autism education. In 2009, she founded her own education center, which grew rapidly and was transformed in 2014 into a boutique non-profit school. Alison specializes in communication building, curriculum development, and behavioral supports. During her entrepreneurial endeavors, she fortuitously met Ava and her mom Molly. Inspired by Ava's immense talents and productivity they co-founded the Invictus Bakery in 2017, a first-of-its-kind wholesale bakery dedicated to changing the disability employment landscape.
Alison's greatest joy is being Max and Alex's mom. She is a voracious reader, nature lover and always desires to be on or near the water (a true Seattleite). Her favorite place to be is in the Invictus Bakery with her all-star team and superstar Bakers where she proudly holds her official title of Dance Party Starter.
Our Why
Families Like Ours supports the wellbeing of parents with special needs children by offering them relief from their overwhelming and stressful caregiving roles.
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Weekend retreats are designed to combat the well-documented negative effects of caregiver burden on physical and mental health. In this therapeutic environment, parents can cultivate a sense of peace, ease, normality, vitality, and courage to help them cope with the social isolation, stress, and exhaustion on their caregiving journey. Our founder, Dr. Amanda Leeder, was trained to run parent retreats with Dr. Barry Prizant (author of Uniquely Human, host of Uniquely Human podcast). While the need for such programming is high, Families Like Ours is still one of the only respite programs of its kind.