Find an advocate to
fit your family

Jeffrey Carroll

Special Education Advocate

At SALUS Educational Advocacy & Consulting, we partner with families to ensure their children receive the support, services, and opportunities they need to thrive —academically, emotionally, and socially. Founded by Dr. Jeffrey D. Carroll, SALUS Educational Advocacy & Consulting offers professional support to families navigating the complexities of special education, school discipline, athletics, and custody-related school issues. With over 30 years of experience as a teacher, administrator, and policy expert, Dr. Carroll provides personalized services to ensure every child’s educational rights and opportunities are protected.

Kimberly Ward

Special Education Advocate

I have worked with individuals with disabilities, different abilities, and behavioral challenges for over 20 years. I have always advocated for my clients. Throughout my career, my support of individuals has evolved. I have provided direct Behavior Support in schools, including conducting behavior assessments and drafting behavior plans. I ran a Supported Employment group program where I created a Work Awareness Student Program for high school students with disabilities and assisted in developing a Job Coaching program. I have provided mental health and behavioral support for a local Juvenile Detention facility. Before starting Advocacy and Behavior Consulting, I served a local school district as the Behavior Support Coordinator for seven years. I also served as the Division Liaison for the VCU Autism Center for Education program and the district liaison for de-escalation and restraint training. I attended annual state and national conferences to co-facilitate the district Threat Assessment Team, creating policies, procedures, and building-level teams to maintain student and staff safety. Leadership changes and an overall shift in priorities left me, my department, and the students and families we served behind. After shouting from the rooftops, clearly documenting the mishandling and disregard for the laws protecting the rights of our most vulnerable, I realized I couldn’t fight the system from the inside. I couldn’t demand protection for the rights of students and their parents from the people in charge because they were the people who were violating the rights of the students that they are paid to educate and teach to be successful adults, so I stepped out on faith, and here I am.

Dr. Shelesha Taylor

Special Education Advocate

Ashley Traylor she/her

Special Education Advocate

I am a non-attorney special education advocate with a master’s degree in special education and nearly two decades of experience supporting students with disabilities and their families. My background includes work as a special education teacher, education consultant, and parent advocate, which gives me a strong understanding of both the school and family sides of the IEP process. I support families with IEPs, 504 plans, evaluations, eligibility, behavior plans, discipline concerns, transition planning, and parent participation in meetings. My goal is to help families feel prepared, informed, and confident while working collaboratively with school teams to address the student’s individual needs. I am also a parent of a child with disabilities, so I understand how emotional and overwhelming the process can feel. I believe families deserve clear information, practical support, and someone beside them who can help translate the paperwork, organize the concerns, and keep the focus on the child. My advocacy style is calm, collaborative, and solution-focused. I help families understand their rights, ask meaningful questions, review documents, prepare for meetings, and communicate concerns clearly and productively.

Advocacy Abby

Help families find funding for therapies, equipment, treatment, accessible vehicles, and major life moments!

I am an advocate and mother who knows what's like to want everything for your child and not know where exactly to find it. As a result we have created the world's largest database of grants, and teach people how to fund raise effectively and guilt free! I specialize in teaching people how to fund grants, and apply successfully as well as fundraising.

Ashly Barta

Special Education Advocate

I bring both professional experience and deeply personal experience to special education advocacy. As an educator, consultant, and parent, I understand special education from both sides of the table. My greatest lessons in advocacy, however, have come from advocating for my own children, especially my son, who is nonverbal, uses AAC to communicate, and has epilepsy. His journey has taught me how important it is to look beyond a diagnosis, ask difficult questions, navigate complex educational and medical systems, and make sure a child’s needs and abilities are truly understood. I know firsthand how overwhelming it can feel when you are trying to make the right decisions for your child while also learning policies, services, evaluations, and supports. Those experiences shape the advocate I strive to be: knowledgeable, compassionate, collaborative, and willing to ask questions when something doesn’t seem right. My goal is not simply to help families navigate special education, but to help them find their voice, understand their options, and confidently advocate for a child who deserves to be seen, heard, and supported.

Paige Ryan

Caregiver Coach

I am a pediatric physical therapist and caregiver coach with over a decade of experience working with children with disabilities, neurodivergent profiles, and complex medical needs. I founded Foundation First Physical Therapy specifically because I kept watching families navigate impossibly complex systems alone — and I wanted to be the person in their corner. My advocacy work lives at the intersection of clinical expertise and systems navigation. I help families understand their child's PT needs, push back on insurance denials, navigate DME and equipment authorization, prepare for IEP meetings from a motor and functional perspective, and make sense of the medical language and recommendations being thrown at them by a team of specialists. What I bring that most advocates don't is the clinical background to speak the language of the providers AND the ability to translate it for families in a way that actually makes sense. I have sat in IEP meetings, written medical necessity letters, filed insurance appeals, and coached caregivers through some of the most overwhelming moments of their lives. I work with families of children with cerebral palsy, autism, rare and complex diagnoses, and medically complex profiles. I am based in Chelmsford, MA but offer virtual support nationwide through my caregiver coaching practice.

Quanae Jefferson

Special Education Advocate

Mother to a medically complex five year old and I’ve been advocating since day one. I’ve helped not only my son but several other families as early as helping a family while my son was in NICU before he was a month old. I’ve founded a nonprofit in Louisiana Empowered By Empathy dedicated to helping families of medically complex children. As my knowledge and skill set grows I hope to help more people. I also plan to enroll in classes this coming fall to a certified/ licensed peer support specialist

Jeff Byars

I help patients and families navigate complex healthcare issues, including medical bills, insurance claims and appeals, coverage disputes, and communication with healthcare providers.

Families come to me when they feel overwhelmed by medical bills, insurance denials, coverage problems, confusing healthcare processes, or difficulty getting clear answers from providers and insurers.

Erin Prosser

Special Education Advocate

I hope families navigate the IEP process whether your child is transitioning from Early Intervention to preschool or from preschool to kindergarten if you need more service hours for PT, OT and Speech in school to make progress on goals, whether you’re deciding between public education or an approved private school— I’m here to help with advocacy letters and to attend IEP meetings. I offer a one time free consultation. I work with families to navigate the ins and outs of the IEP process, request what they need, document appropriately, and ask the right questions to get the supports that their rare disease kid needs to be successful in life.