The FASD Success Show

Carrie McCarter is a speech-language pathologist with a master’s degree who has spent her career working in the birth-to-three world of early intervention. However, when it came to raising her own twins with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) , she found that her professional training wasn't enough to navigate the intense dysregulation and sensory challenges at home. In this episode, Carr...

When you’re parenting on high alert for years, your nervous system eventually tries to protect you. Sometimes that protection looks like numbness, irritability, shutdown, or going through the motions. In this episode, Jeff Noble sits down with Michael Harris, known online as FASD Elephant, to break down the science of blocked care and the small, realistic ways caregivers can find their way back to...

Episode #187 The FASD Brain and Connectivity with Dr. Raja Mukherjee What if many of the struggles we see in FASD are not about behavior at all but about how the brain sends and receives messages? In this episode of The FASD Success Show, Jeff Noble sits down with Dr. Raja Mukherjee, one of the world’s leading experts in FASD psychiatry and brain development, to explore what brain connectivity rea...

What if independence is not the finish line we should be chasing for individuals with FASD? In this episode of The FASD Success Show, Jeff Noble sits down with Chris Fillion, an adult on the FASD spectrum, foster parent, and national advocate, to talk honestly about what adulthood with FASD really looks like when support is done right. Chris shares his lived experience navigating mental health cha...

Trigger warning: This episode discusses suicide, self-harm, and mental health crises. In this powerful and compassionate conversation, Jeff Noble sits down with Dr. Carly McMorris — clinical psychologist, associate professor at the University of Calgary, and leading FASD researcher — to talk about one of the hardest and most important topics in the FASD community: mental health. They break down ho...

Episode 184: Laurie Anderson The Power of Showing Up What if success as a caregiver wasn’t about getting everything right, but about showing up again and again? In this heartfelt episode of The FASD Success Show, Jeff Noble sits down with long time community leader and coach Laurie Anderson to talk about what it really means to keep going through the hardest seasons of caregiving with compassion,...

What really happens as people with FASD grow into adulthood and beyond? In this episode of The FASD Success Show, Jeff Noble sits down with Dr. Valerie Temple to talk about brand-new Canadian research exploring how the FASD brain and body change with age — and what families, caregivers, and professionals need to know to support lifelong success. Dr. Temple and her team analyzed data from over 400...

What happens after the diagnosis? In this episode of The FASD Success Show, Jeff Noble sits down with Joseph Munn , an adult with FASD who’s building a life that works, not one that’s defined by expectations. Joseph opens up about what it felt like to finally understand his brain, how interdependence and technology help him stay regulated, and what community really means in adulthood. From gaming...

In this episode of The FASD Success Show , Jeff Noble sits down with Sophie Harrington , CEO of NOFASD Australia , to talk about what happens when caregivers stop chasing perfection and start building holidays  and lives that actually fit their families’ nervous systems. Sophie is a mom, advocate, and birth parent who’s turned her personal story into national leadership. Together, Jeff and Sophie...

The holidays are here, and for a lot of caregivers raising individuals with FASD, this isn’t the season of calm and cozy. It’s the season where routines explode, nerves fray, school schedules flip, people show up unannounced, and you’re trying to keep everyone safe while the world tells you to “make memories.” That’s why all month long, The FASD Success Show is bringing you the Holiday Sanity Seri...

The scans are in, and they tell a different story. Dr. Catherine Lebel, Canada’s leading FASD brain imaging researcher, joins Jeff Noble to share what MRI research reveals about how the brain develops after prenatal alcohol exposure and why the story is far more hopeful than most people think. Through years of ground breaking studies, Dr. Lebel and her team have shown that the FASD brain doesn’t s...

What if your loved one with FASD’s brain wasn’t misfiring — it was miss-messaging ? In this powerful episode, Jeff sits down with Dr. Long from the University of Calgary’s Developmental Neuroimaging Lab , one of the key researchers on Dr. Catherine Lebel’s team, to uncover what really happens inside the brain after prenatal alcohol exposure. Dr. Long explains how the brain’s network — the system t...

What if mental health and behavior weren’t just about the brain, but also about the body? In this fascinating conversation, Jeff sits down with Dr. Tamara Bodnar, a biological scientist and researcher at the University of Calgary, whose work is changing how we understand FASD from the inside out. Dr. Bodnar studies the gut–brain axis — the constant communication between our digestive system and ou...

Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussions around mental health challenges and suicide. Please listen when you feel ready and take care of yourself as needed. What if everything you thought you knew about mental health and behavior was flipped on its head? In this powerful conversation, Jeff sits down with Dr. Jacqueline Pei , psychologist, professor at the University of Alberta , and seni...

What if you could hear the same family one year apart and actually feel the shift from chaos to connection. In this powerful “before and after” episode, Jeff revisits Angela Freeman and her two kids, Ruby and Elias. Last year, we met them in Toronto when every day felt like triage — school battles, misunderstandings, and constant fires. One year later, everything looks different. Through sober mom...

Teaching, Training and Transformation: Malgorzata’s Journey Forward What happens when language that works at home starts changing classrooms and systems. What if a one minute demo with an umbrella could stop symptom punishment faster than another meeting. What if a parent advocate was invited to help shape an international conference. About This Episode In this Part 2 of The FASD Success Show, I b...

Turning Pain Into Purpose: Malgorzata’s FASD Advocacy What if the child you were promised was “healthy” — and the real story didn’t show up until years later? What if the diagnosis you fought so hard to get didn’t open doors but instead left you standing in another long hallway? In this episode of The FASD Success Show, I sit down with Malgorzata from Poland. Her journey takes us through judgment,...

Relationships and Resilience: Reinier & Kate on Love and FASD What does love look like when FASD is part of the story? And how do you play the long game when milestones come later than expected? In this episode of The FASD Success Show, I sit down with my friends Reinier deSmit and Kate Kristiansen for a real and vulnerable conversation about partnership, conflict, and resilience. Reinier was...

FASD Awareness Month Special: CanFASD Updates + See Jeff Live Awareness isn’t just hashtags or red shoes. It’s what we do with that awareness that counts. In this special episode of The FASD Success Show , I sit down with Kathy Unsworth (the new Executive Director of CanFASD) and Audrey McFarlane (who has been a champion of mine since day one). We talk about the new Canadian Academy of Health Scie...

In this raw and powerful episode of the FASD Success Show, Jeff sits down with his friend and colleague Barb Clark just hours after she received her official FASD diagnosis. Barb has coached, trained, and supported caregivers for years, but this time she’s on the other side of the story  talking openly about what it feels like to finally have confirmation of something she always suspected. She sha...

In this follow-up episode of the FASD Success Show, Jeff reconnects with Barb Clark three months after she received her official FASD diagnosis. When we first spoke, Barb had just gotten the news, and she shared the raw relief and validation of finally having a name for her lifelong struggles. Now, with time to process, she reflects on what has actually changed in her daily life, her work, and her...

In this powerful episode of the FASD Success Show, Jeff sits down with Cornelia Fornefeld, a fierce and funny foster mom from Germany who's turning personal adversity into national impact. Cornelia opens up about the whirlwind journey of raising her daughter Dana, who came into her home at just five weeks old. Despite being a trained social worker and early childhood educator, Cornelia quickl...

Join us for a raw and real episode of The FASD Success Show . I’m your host, Jeff Noble, and in this episode, I chat with Ray and Jen, parents of five kids—four of whom are on the FASD spectrum. Before joining our community, they were constantly overwhelmed by daily blowups, meltdowns, and behaviors that left them walking on eggshells. But through training and education, they found the tools to st...

Welcome to another inspiring episode of The FASD Success Show ! In this episode, I sit down with Ryan Jolly, an incredible single mom of four, two of whom have FASD. Ryan's story is one of resilience, determination, and the transformation that comes from finding the right support. Ryan opens up about her toughest moments—like dealing with explosive behaviors and feeling completely overwhelmed...

In this episode of The FASD Success Show , I sit down with Mike and Crystal, a couple who have been through the wringer raising four kids—all on the FASD spectrum. They open up about their darkest moments and the journey that brought them from surviving on the edge to finding peace and understanding. Crystal shares how she was on the verge of running away, feeling overwhelmed and without support....