Diana Autin

Diana Autin is the Executive Co-Director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN), NJ’s Parent Training and Information Center; Family-to-Family Health Information Resource Center; Family Voices and Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health chapters; Statewide Parent to Parent program; and Military Family 360 Support Project (US DHHS ACF), among other programs. Autin co-directs NE-PACT, the Region 1 Parent Technical Assistance Center, providing technical assistance and capacity-building to the federally-funded parent training and information centers and community parent resource centers in the Northeast United States. In that capacity, she serves as the Parent Center Facilitator of the Inclusion Community of Practice and a member of the IDEA Partnership Creating Agreement Community of Practice, and on the Scaling-up Implementation of State Evidence-based Practices Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health Consultant Pool, and serves as a Senior Consultant for the National Center for Cultural Competence. She is a participant in the Advocacy and Community Engagement Learning Cluster of the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health and the National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health. She is a member of the Board of the NJ Alliance of Family Support Organizations and the NJ Immigration Policy Network, chairing its Education Committee. SPAN received an “Outstanding Service” Award and “Best Practices in Reducing Health Disparities” Award from the NJ Department of Health in 2010 and 2009, as well as the first-ever Art of Novel Partnership Award from the Genetic Alliance (2010). Autin was awarded the 2011 Rose Annussek Inclusive Childcare Advocacy Award, the 2010 Outstanding Family Leadership Award from the National Initiative for Improving Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ), the 2008 Un Mundo Para Todos/One World for All Award by El Club de Padres, the 2007 Winning Angels Advocacy Award by the Winning Angels Latina Parent Support Group, the 2004 Advocate of the Year Award by the Association for Special Children and Families, the 2003 National Family Week Family Advocate of the Year Award by the Family Service League, the 2002 Distinguished Service Award by the New Jersey Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and an Al Harrison Public Health Award by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services in 1999. Other awards include selection as a Rockefeller Foundation “Next Generation of Leadership” Fellow (2002); an Advocacy Institute Senior Leadership Fellow (1994); Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow, Harvard University Law School (1993); New York State Advocate of the Year, Disabilities Awareness Coalition (1993); and Revson Fellow on the Future of New York City at Columbia University (1987-1988). Autin received her BA degree with Honors from the University of Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1977.