“Personal experience with disability transforms our existence and brings us into a new awareness. With awareness comes understanding, with understanding comes acceptance. All persons have support needs. Fullness in life is realized when we leverage our personal strengths (our coolabilities) in community and achieve interdependence.”
About Mendi
Mendi lives in Westfield Indiana with her husband Brent and sons, Gabe and Ian. Mendi has served in the role of parent lead of the Westfield Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) since its inception in 2022. She also serves on the board of Down Syndrome Indiana. Mendi is a licensed Occupational Therapist with experience in activity analysis, goal setting and client specific holistically developed interventions to galvanize groups and lead them to achieve team objectives. Furthermore, Mendi has a background in executive leadership with skills in recruiting, facilitation, communication, conflict resolution and culture building.
Mendi believes that family engagement in special education leads to student success. Through volunteer work in her school district as the parent lead of a SEPAC, Mendi views this type of council as an essential practice in family engagement. Taking her passion for her children’s education into service to others in her community has been a natural and rewarding path and has led to the launch of Coolabilities.