School Avoidance: Navigating the Crisis
Live with Guest Host, Jayne Demsky
School Avoidance: Navigating the Crisis
Live Webinar | April 2nd
Rebuilding School Attendance. A Regulation and Relationship-Based Approach to School Avoidance.
School avoidance is rising at an alarming rate, and what we are seeing is not defiance. It is dysregulation. When a child cannot attend school, it is rarely about refusal. It is about not feeling safe enough to show up.
In this neuroscience-informed and relationship-centered webinar with Jayne Demsky, founder of the School Avoidance Alliance, we move beyond behavior management and into understanding function. Participants will learn how to identify the four primary drivers of school avoidance and respond with targeted, evidence-based interventions that rebuild confidence and restore attendance.
Grounded in a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support framework, this session provides a clear roadmap for universal prevention, early intervention, and intensive re-entry planning. Participants will also gain practical tools to strengthen home and school collaboration, ensuring consistent, regulation-based support across environments.
This is not about forcing attendance. It is about restoring safety, connection, and capacity so students can return to learning with dignity and support.
Join us as we speak with Jayne on April 2nd.
Jayne Demsky is the founder of the School Avoidance Alliance and a leading national advocate and educator on the complexities of school avoidance. Driven by her family’s struggle with chronic school avoidance, Jayne founded the Alliance in 2014 to fill a critical void in specialized resources, professional development, and family advocacy.
Today, the School Avoidance Alliance is the premier resource for evidence-based intervention in the United States. Jayne’s flagship professional learning course has redefined how school districts across the country manage school avoidance through a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) framework.
She is a founding member of Attendance USA and an active member of the International Network for School Attendance (INSA), a global collective of the world’s leading researchers and clinicians. Jayne has also collaborated with prominent experts such as Dr. Anne Marie Albano, Founder of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CUCARD), to bridge the gap between clinical insight and actionable school-based support.
Jayne is the author of Overcoming School Avoidance (Hachette Book Group), and her work has been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, Education Week, EdSurge, and CBS News. Through her MasterClass series and professional training, she empowers educators, clinicians, and families with practical roadmaps to support students' return to school.