Jodee Kulp
Since her daughter's diagnosis with FASD in 1997, successful businesswoman Jodee Kulp has become a tireless speaker and advocate for FAS.
"[Although] Jodee is an adoptive parent first and foremost [...] she spends nearly every moment of her life devoted to helping families who are parenting children who have FASD", said Deb Fjeld, a Minnesota Parent Advocate.
Kulp has achieved recognition for her tremendous success as an award-winning author and publisher. Her publishing company, Better Endings New Beginnings, has published numerous titles about FAS, and her own books, "Journey to Life", "Families at Risk", "The Whitest Wall", "Our FAScinating Journey", and "The Best I Can Be" with daughter Liz, have each received critical acclaim from the FASD community.
Most recently, Kulp was awarded two Mom's Choice Gold Awards for Best Young Adult Fiction and Best Adult Fiction for her new young adult novel "The Whitest Wall", whose main character is a young man with FASD.
"By documenting her own experience in "Our FAScinating Journey" and that of her daughter, Liz, in "The Best I Can Be", Jodee has helped parents teach their children how to navigate the world while living with this life long devastating developmental disability", said Donnie Kanter Winokur, NOFAS Georgia. "Jodee's expertise and experience is surpassed only by her creative insight in presenting difficult information in a unique and entertaining manner."
Kulp has been a presenter and keynote speaker for Families-at-Risk Conferences and Institutes, verbal abuse workshops, and other seminars, providing creative learning strategies for living with children with FASD.
Her websites, www.betterendings.org and www.toolboxparent.com, offer a wealth of resources for FAS families and caregivers.
In September 2009, Kulp launched the "Million Mind March" in an effort to "encourage the next generation of young people to raise the standard to build better baby brains by standing along side a friend who is pregnant and remain chemical free for the duration of the pregnancy".
Kulp is currently working on a number of new books, including "Bear in Mind", an anger management book for children; "Tiger Butterfly", the sequel to "Whitest Wall"; and "Braided Cord", written with her daughter Liz and husband Karl.
|