Board of Directors  

Ablechild's National Board of Directors is a select group of individuals from a variety of backgrounds, bound by their shared interests in educating the public regarding subjective psychiatric labels like ADD/ADHD.   The board consists of professionals in medicine, education and psychology, as well as other related fields. These professionals advocate for children and adults in a two-fold step process.  They believe in, and uphold, the standard of “Informed Consent,” providing accurate information on psychiatric diagnoses, psychiatric labeling, and drug “treatment.” They know without “Informed Consent,” parents, caregivers, children, and all others, would have a difficult time in making well thought out, educated decisions. In addition, our board members believe that under a person’s Right to Liberty, he or she has the right to choose “treatment,” or be able to opt out of “treatment.”  Each feels strongly that a person should never be forced to undergo any form of “treatment.”

Ablechild Board Members advocate for children’s health, safety and well-being.

Our organization consists of unique and outspoken individuals willing to take a stand for healthy, safe drug-free approaches to mental health or educational issues.  Today there are many organizations which advocate and promote psychiatric labels and drug “treatment for children and adults while pocketing pharmaceutical dollars.  This is a “Conflict of Interest”.  Ablechild promotes neither, psychiatric labels or drug “treatment,” and for over four years has been self funded out of its parent representative’s own pockets.  These parents are dedicated to helping others find effective non-drug solutions for attention and behavioral issues.  Likewise, Ablechild’s Board is not in anyway compromised in professionalism and its members are not tied to drug company dollars.    

Ablechild’s board will work diligently toward reform in mental health and education.  It will set annual initiatives and goals that will pave the way for positive and effective changes within mental health and education.

William Glasser, M.D.: Dr. Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist who is best known as the author of Reality Therapy, a method of psychotherapy he created in 1965 and that is now taught all over the world. His approach is non-traditional. He does not believe in the concept of mental illness unless there is something organically wrong with the brain that can be confirmed by a pathologist.

Born in 1925 and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Glasser later attended medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and took his psychiatric training at the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Los Angeles and at UCLA from 1954-57. It was there that he began his break with psychiatric tradition that has continued over the years. He was initially a Chemical Engineer but went into psychiatry when it became apparent to him that this was his real interest in life. He became Board Certified in Psychiatry in 1961 and was in private practice (using Reality Therapy) from 1957 to 1986.

Glasser's path has been one of a continuing progression in private practice, lecturing and writing, ultimately culminating in the publication of over twenty books. After writing the counseling book, Reality Therapy, in 1965, he added education with Schools Without Failure in 1969, greatly expanded the understanding of motivation and behavior with Choice Theory in 1998, and finally helped people improve their own mental health or happiness, with Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health, in 2003.

Fred Baughman, M.D.:  Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD has been an adult & child neurologist, in private practice, for 35 years. Making "disease" (real diseases--epilepsy, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, etc.) or "no disease" (emotional, psychological, psychiatric) diagnoses daily, he has discovered and described real, bona fide diseases.

It is this particular medical and scientific background that has led him to view the "epidemic" of one particular "disease"--Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)--with increasing alarm. Dr. Baughman describes this himself. Referring to psychiatry, he says: "They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive--termed them a 'disease.' Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term 'research,' has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically--the "epidemic" having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today--this remains the state of the 'science' of ADHD." 

Mary Ann Block, D.O.:  Dr. Mary Ann Block is an international expert on the treatment of ADHD without drugs and a recognized healthcare leader for her natural and practical approach to children’s health. Dr. Block is the author of the top-selling books, No More ADHD, No More Ritalin and No More Antibiotics: Treating Ear and Respiratory Infections the Natural Way and Today I Will Not Die, the story of how she helped her mother survive terminal lung cancer in 1991.

Dr. Block was compelled to go to medical school at the age of 39 to save her daughter after doctors made the child ill with inappropriate use of drugs for bladder infections. Today her daughter is a healthy adult as a result of her mother's determination and devotion. Dr. Block was honored by the Ladies` Home Journal and The Lifetime Channel for helping her daughter in such an inspirational way.

As Medical Director of The Block Center in the Dallas area, an international clinic for adults and children with chronic health problems, Dr. Block now offers other parents the same kind of health care she desperately needed for her own child.

A tireless advocate for children, Dr. Block has been traveling the country speaking to parent and professional groups and at legislative hearings on the dangers of the psychiatric drugging of our children.

Dr. Block Chairs the Health and Empowerment Committee for the National Foundation for Women Legislators. Dr. Block has served as a peer reviewer for the Agency for Health-Care Policy and Research and the American Academy of Pediatrics for the diagnosis and treatment of ear problems. She holds a clinical faculty appointment at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and she served on the faculty as assistant professor at the University Of North Texas Health Science Center/Texas College Of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Worth, Texas .  Dr. Block was the recipient of the Wayne O. Stockseth Award for Osteopathic Excellence, has served on the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Osteopathy and was selected for Who's Who in Healthcare in Tarrant County by The Tarrant County Business Press and is a member of Leadership Texas.

John Breeding, Ph.D.: is a psychologist with a well-established private counseling practice in Austin, Texas. A significant part of his work involves counseling with parents and children. He lectures and leads workshops for parents and educators on handling the challenge of a child who is labeled a "problem." He is director of Wildest Colts Resources, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to assist adults in becoming more effective in their work with young people, offering non-drug alternatives to helping young people who are having a hard time. He is also director of Texans For Safe Education, a citizens group dedicated to challenging the ever-increasing role of psychiatry, especially psychiatric drugs, in the schools. Dr. Breeding is also active on other challenges of psychiatric oppression, including electroshock, and the psychiatric drugging of elders in nursing homes.

Dr. Breeding obtained his doctorate in School Psychology from the University of Texas. He is the author of three books, The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses,  The Necessity of Madness and Unproductivity: Psychiatric Oppression or Human Transformation, and True Nature and Great Misunderstandings.

Trevor James Tebbs Ph.D.: Dr. Tebbs' interest in Ablechild springs from his direct experience of dysfunctional young people battling against a labeled and "medicated" history from their early years in school.  Convinced of a more holistic approach in which personal engagement and informed decision-making contributes to healthy educational and emotional development, he views "medication" as the primary means of treating various "disorders" both troublesome and potentially unhealthy.  He believes we are in the midst of a cultural phenomenon of young people, and their parents deserve to know more.

With almost 40 years experience and qualifications in art, special & regular education Dr. Tebbs has taught K - 16+ students in regular, special, art, gifted, primary, secondary, and post secondary educational settings in the both the UK and USA .  His educational psychology doctoral degree from the University of Connecticut concentrates on gifted education and counseling.  He studied with Dr. Joseph Renzulli at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Dr. Tebbs enjoys teaching, coaching, and counseling young people.  College level students describe him as "a great professor" and "inspirational" and his classes "extraordinarily great".  In May 2002, University of Connecticut honors students awarded him as a 'true innovator' and in 2003 he received professional and state recognition for excellence in teaching.

Presently, Dr. Tebbs has one two year old grandchild - an intense little person!   Dr. Tebbs suspects Hallie may pose a problem in a system basically unprepared for children like her.  He fears someone is going to say to his daughter, "Your child is disordered.  Something is wrong.  She needs help."  With this in mind, he believes it imperative that parents no longer remain ignorant of any insightful information when pondering the development of their able children and any associated problems arising during that process. As far as he is concerned, a life is at stake. 

Roger Tilton, Ph.D.: Dr. Roger Tilton is a licensed psychologist who specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy of anxiety and depression.  He was trained in cognitive therapy by Dr. Gary Emery, who co-authored two classic books with Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, and he received individual training in behavior therapy from Dr. Joseph Wolpe, the founder of behavior therapy.  

Sharon Steele Kientz: Sharon is a retired teacher, an active musician and a current school board member.  She retired in 1997 after a 23 year career in the classroom, 21 years teaching kindergarten children how to read with systematic, explicit phonics with a rich program of music and movement included in the daily curriculum.   In 1995 Sharon was honored as Teacher of the Year by the National Right to Read Foundation.  She also received a commendation from the California Legislative Assembly for her success in teaching children how to read.  From 1999 to 2001 she received three appointments from the California Department of Education and served on panels selecting beginning reading programs and establishing performance standards for the language arts/reading assessment.  In 1998 she was elected to the school board in her Sierra foothill retirement community. In March of 2005 she was successful in bringing to a unanimous affirmative vote a board policy statement that prohibits school personnel from diagnosing ADD/ADHD or recommending or requiring psychotropic drugs for students. In March of 2004 she testified before the California Assembly Education Committee on an eventually defeated bill that would have given the same protection to all California students.

Sharon’s passionate concern about the fraudulent diagnosis of ADD/ADHD and subsequent drugging of children began in 1994 when her joyful, exuberant six-year-old grandson was diagnosed as ADD, initially by his first grade teacher, and prescribed Mellaril.  An informative phone conversation with Dr. Fred Baughman alerted her to the horrendous ramifications of this diagnosis.  Her education on the subject continued with a book recommended by Dr. Baughman entitled Toxic Psychiatry by Dr. Peter Breggin.  Many books, internet articles and conversations later, plus an eleven year witness to the abuse of her grandson with Ritalin, Cylert, Serzone, Wellbutrin, Imipramine, Lithium, and Risperdal and the frequent observation of the practice of psychiatry by school personnel, have made her a dedicated advocate of a drug-free childhood.  

Patricia Weathers:  Ablechild Founder.  Patricia Weathers is a mother of two boys ages 15 and 8.  She lives in New York State .   She has testified at two Congressional Hearings (9/29/00 and 9/26/02) on the role of behavioral drugs and schools.  She, as President of Ablechild testified before the FDA in October of 2004, a hearing on antidepressant drugs and their link to violence and suicide ideation.  She with Ablechild played a key role in the FDA’s implementation of the Black Box Warnings on antidepressants in 2004, a victory for all human rights crusaders everywhere.  Patricia Weathers with Ms. Sheila Matthew founded Ablechild (2001) championing parental and children rights to ensure that all individuals have their right to full informed consent and their right to refuse psychological/psychiatric services upheld. Their wish is that Ablechild will be the voice of parents everywhere struggling with various issues such as ADD/ADHD and other psychiatric labels, forced child drugging, informed consent and their right to privacy. She has been featured on over two dozen media outlets (Good Morning America, Hannity and Colmes, The Today Show, The New York Times, …….) and in many more publications. 

Today, Patricia Weathers is a staunch advocate of homeschooling and Waldorf education having had first hand negative experience in both public and traditional private sectors. 

Sheila Matthews: Ablechild Founder. Ms. Sheila Matthews is the mother of two boys ages 13 and 10.  She lives in the State of Connecticut and is the first mother to successfully testify on behalf of the First State Law in the United States (2001) prohibiting school personnel from recommending psychotropic drugs to parents.  Sheila advocated on behalf of children in Connecticut State care to effectively remove certain dangerous antidepressants from use on foster care children/wards of the State.  Ms. Matthews with Ablechild participated in two Connecticut Statewide Educational Conferences on Special Education.  She has been featured on CNN as well as Time Magazine (Colin Powell ED. Sept. 10, 2001) questioning the validity of ADD/ADHD and the harmful recommended drug “treatments”.

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