On September 17, 186 students, community members, staff members and faculty members of Kennedy Krieger Institute, The Johns Hopkins University and The Johns Hopkins Hospital attended the annual Room to Grow: Journey to Cultural and Linguistic Competency Conference, held in the Chevy Chase Conference Center at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.
This year’s theme, “Ensuring Inclusion,” focused on disability and the life course perspective, legislative policy, the impact of language deprivation for individuals with hearing impairment, and advancing health equity in diverse communities.
Speakers for the morning sessions included Elizabeth Hall, MSW, director of interagency affairs at the Maryland Department of Disabilities; Harolyn Belcher, director of the Center for Diversity in Public Health Leadership Training at Kennedy Krieger; and Kisha B. Holden, PhD, MSCR, interim director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine.
Guest experts AZA Allsop, MD, PhD, and Bruce Birren, PhD, led the afternoon’s interactive workshop, “Bias: How the Brain Takes Short Cuts.”
The Room to Grow: Journey to Cultural and Linguistic Competency Conference is an annual event sponsored by the Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities (MCDD), the Center for Diversity in Public Health Leadership Training, Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND), Kennedy Krieger’s Human Resources Department and the Office of the Provost at The Johns Hopkins University.
