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Ebony Holliday, PhD: Best Part of Working with Autistic Children and Collaborating with Communities

What does Ebony Holliday, PhD, assistant director of Community Programs at Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSI), love most about her work? She says engaging directly and collaborating with children, adolescents, families, and people in communities to help autistic — and all — people get the services and supports they may need to thrive in school and in life is incredibly meaningful to her.

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Head shot of Dr. Ebony Holliday

Researcher, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Ebony Holliday

Dr. Holliday is the assistant director of CASSI Community Programs at Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSI). She has worked in public and private schools, alternative educational settings, community agencies, healthcare organizations, and homes in order to support the multidimensional needs of children, adolescents, young adults, and families. 

Transcript

I think for me, the best part of what I like about what I do, and I think the reason that I got into the field was really to work with people. So I love that opportunity to engage directly with families, to engage directly with children, with adolescents, with individuals and or individuals in the community. So really looking at saying, what are the current issues right now and how can we work together? So that collaboration piece is really key to me and it’s really important. And there’s not a lot that I do without collaboration. So I really feel like whether that is in the community, whether it’s teachers, parents, children, I always want to make sure that I’m kind of on the same page, that I understand what their needs are and that I’m doing my best to make sure that I’m kind of serving their needs. So working with families, seeing improvements in children, seeing goals being met, seeing children be able to transition, and seeing families being able to meet the needs of their children, I think that’s most meaningful to me.