A Love Letter to the Sensory Community is a free webinar series with STAR's Executive Director, Dr. Virginia Spielmann, of three talks and a panel conversation about seeing ourselves, each other, and our work through a kinder, more integrated sensory lens. It honors what Dr. Jean Ayres knew all along, while updating it for today's world.

We all have sensory systems. None of us is standing outside the story, looking in. Yet the way many of us were taught to think about "sensory" split us into categories: clinician and client, regulated and dysregulated, too much and too little. This series puts the pieces back together with humor, tenderness, and respect for everyone in the room. Jean Ayres understood that this was about whole people in complex worlds. Over time, the field flattened that. Together, we can unflatten it.

A Love Letter to Our Sensory Selves: Making Sense of Who We Are
December 8 | Tuesday | 6:00pm-7:30pm MT

How does a cohesive sensory lens help us understand ourselves more kindly and accurately?

This session offers compassionate self-understanding for the humans in this work: professionals, caregivers, advocates, neurodivergent folks, and "sensory people" generally. It's about identity, lived experience, and embodiment, not job titles. We'll explore:

• Our host's own sensory story, told with humor and tenderness
• Common myths we tell ourselves, like "I'm just bad at coping" or "I'm too sensitive," reframed as sensory experience plus context
• A simple, integrated lens: body, environment, culture, and history
• Gentle reflection questions to take home, like "What did I call a flaw that might be sensory plus context?"

A Love Letter to the Work: Practicing Sensory Integration with Nuance and Care
December 10 | Thursday | 6:00pm-7:30pm MT

How do we bring this kinder, cohesive sensory lens into what we actually do every day?

This session is for anyone whose work touches sensory lives: therapists, teachers, support workers, coaches, parents, and autistic advocates who advise services. We'll explore:

• Moving from "doing sensory techniques" to working from a sensory-integration-informed stance
• Vignettes from clinic, classroom, and home where "supporting" and "fixing" get tangled
• When the work is about changing the task or environment, and when it's about nurturing capacity and embodiment
• Keeping agency and consent at the center
• Language shifts for explaining goals, challenges, and hopes to kids, adults, and colleagues
• A "mini compass" of questions that helps keep decisions on the non-pathologizing side of the line

A Love Letter to Our Shared Future: Reimagining Sensory Communities and Systems
December 15 | Tuesday | 6:00pm-7:30pm MT

What kind of sensory future are we building, and how do we avoid repeating the old patterns in new clothes?

This session zooms out to community and systems: services, training, policy, and the spaces we share. We'll explore:

• Honoring a legacy without freezing it in time
• The 15-year STAR arc as a mirror of the field's shifts, from sensory integration to sensory health to justice and nuance
• Where we are now: fragmentation, hot takes, and turf wars, alongside the real possibility of a sensory-informed ecosystem
• Practical levers for clinicians in schools and clinics, managers, directors and educators, and parents and advocates on advisory groups
• Small, aligned moves: no heroics, just moving one notch closer in your corner of the sensory world

The Panel Conversation
December 17 | Thursday | 6:00pm-7:30pm MT

After the three talks, we gather the threads in conversation: seeing ourselves, each other, and our work, and where we go from here.

What Jean Ayres knew all along (when we really listen closely)
Each talk includes one short Ayres moment: a story, a quote, or an idea, retold in today's language. The problem was never Ayres. It's the simplifications and misuses of her work. The most Ayres-consistent thing we can do is keep evolving our understanding, especially in conversation with autistic and other neurodivergent people.

Who this is for

Anyone who has a sensory system and cares about sensory lives: occupational therapists and other clinicians, teachers, support workers, coaches, parents and caregivers, autistic and neurodivergent advocates, directors and managers, early-career folks, and anyone who calls themselves a sensory person. OT is in the room, but this is never only about OT. In Part 1, "we" means the humans in this community. In Part 2, it means people doing sensory-related work in any role. In Part 3, it means the sensory community as a whole.

What you might carry with you

• "I feel more seen."
• "I have a clearer inner compass for my decisions."
• "I'm part of a bigger, evolving sensory community, and I can move toward something braver and kinder without burning out."

Come as you are. There's a seat for you here. Save your free spot and join us.