Speakers

Karen Fluharty
Parents With A Plan
Co-Founder

In 2017 Karen Fluharty began to look toward the future for her then 12-year-old son Ryan and quickly realized that special individuals fall off what is known as “the cliff” at 21. Armed with a mother’s will and years of business acumen, the nonprofit Parents With A Plan was founded in 2019 with the goal of creating a scalable model that brings the private and public sectors together for real social impact and change. 
As a 30-year real estate executive & entrepreneur, Karen has contributed marketing leadership to over 15 million square feet of retail real estate globally. She has a track record of creating, managing, and scaling multimillion-dollar companies. A noted industry leader in the real estate marketing and the founding partner of Strategy+Style Marketing Group, she is responsible for putting brands on the map. 

 
John Klein
Board Member
Parents With A Plan

John Klein has served for six years on the board of Parents With A Plan, where he currently leads their development and financing work.
 
With more than 30 years as a noted real estate developer and executive, John is currently principal of International Outlet Consultants, offering incomparable insight and knowledge to firms interested in developing outlet centers in major international markets. Earlier in his career, John served as chief executive officer of the Premium Outlets division of Simon Property Group, the largest portfolio of outlet center properties in the world. John earned his Master of Business Administration from George Washington University and Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University.

Dori Frumin Kirshner 
Executive Director
Matan

Dori Frumin Kirshner has been Matan’s executive director for nearly 15 years. Under Dori’s leadership, Matan has shifted from a purely local, direct service organization to one that significantly impacts the field of Jewish disability inclusion in North America through training and consulting in a multitude of settings — congregational schools, early childhood programs, camps, Jewish day schools, and more. 

Prior to coming to Matan, Dori worked at UJA-Federation for seven years, in both planning and fundraising capacities. Dori began her career at The Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan. Dori holds an M.A. in education from The Jewish Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Emory University. Dori is a sought-after national speaker on the issue of Jewish inclusion and has published articles and op-eds in such publications as The New York Jewish Week and eJewish Philanthropy.

Self-Advocates

Elizabeth Dicker

Elizabeth Dicker is an autistic adult who works at the Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services as an accessibility specialist. She loves to draw and has created commissioned art pieces for both the RCAAS and Felicity House. Elizabeth has spoken on panels at the Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services and in 2023 gave a speech at their annual Neurodiversity Summit.

Jonathan Polanco
Jonathan Polanco is 18 years old and attends his local public high school, where he is now in inclusion classes. 

He has many interests including science, music, poetry, songwriting, biking, swimming, and cooking, but his greatest passion is helping others. He is first and foremost an advocate, and perhaps time will show how dedicated he is to the autism community. 

Galilee Damiao 
Communication Partner of Jonathan Polanco

Galilee Damiao is an MS OTR/L, an occupational therapist, and the owner of Accessible Expression Therapies, where she passionately dedicates her practice to providing access to communication to non-speaking, minimally speaking, and unreliably speaking individuals. Specializing in text-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) solutions, Galilee is a Wellspring Guild trained typing coach (FCT) and a trainer in training, with additional expertise in RPM (Rapid Prompting Method) and S2C (Spelling to Communicate).

Beyond her clinical work, Galilee contributes to the field by lecturing, supervising, and publishing clinical research and providing training workshops. Collaborating with a dedicated team, she provides higher education support to text-based communicators and guides individuals, families, teams, and schools in unlocking full potential through text-based AAC.