Who we are
Dr Kelli Harding
Kelli aims to make the world a kinder and healthier place for all. An expert in psychiatry, mind-body medicine, and public health, she teaches at Columbia University in New York City and is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness. Despite her degrees, Kelli’s greatest teachers remain her three teenage sons and her family’s neurodiversity journey. She wants no parent ever to feel alone. Learn more at kellihardingmd.com.
Sara Blanchard
Sara loves to bridge the gap between well-being and social justice, advocating for those facing systemic challenges. After graduating from Harvard and working at Goldman Sachs, Sara became an accidental entrepreneur: she is a certified life coach, co-founder of Dear White Women (a social justice platform + podcast), and the author of two books. In addition to raising two multi-ethnic daughters in Colorado (Sara herself is Japanese and white), she and her white Canadian husband are constantly learning and unlearning as they navigate parenting neurodivergence. Learn more at sarablanchard.com.
How did you meet?
In March 2024, Dr Kelli Harding lingered by the dessert table in the back of the World Happiness Summit Policy Forum in a stately meeting room at the London School of Economics. Facilitator Sara Blanchard bounced over, overjoyed at seeing her for the first time since meeting the year prior at the World Happiness Summit. Over coffee and cakes, the topic of parenting neurodivergent teens came up – and it felt like a weight was removed from our shoulders when we realized we were each grappling with having to rework our definitions of success. Someone else GOT IT! We joked that we should start a parent community so other recovering type-A people could feel seen and learn together… and then we realized we could create it!
Fast forward to this fall and we’ve got a successful pilot program of the NeuroParent Alliance under our belt and we're launching our second cohort. We're excited to create the community--filled with understanding, learning, and laughter-- we each needed, with all of us, together!