On Sunday, April 30th, Alana sat down with Taylor Geathers, mother of Marlee, who lives with Angelman syndrome. They were joined by several others in the community, along with FAST staff and board members, to discuss the topic of racial and ethnic representation in the AS community.

This topic is incredibly important and will be one of many as we start closing the gaps on representation in the medical field, research, and the community.

Some of the key discussion points were:

1. How we at FAST can overcome the obstacles to bring more representation into the community.
2. How FAST and the community can work together to build communication channels and resources to help educate and engage with minority communities.
3. How FAST can encourage and show representation without tokenizing. 

Several ideas were brought forward and FAST is looking forward to providing more opportunities for our researchers, pharmaceutical partners, and the community in the future for inclusion and openness.

If you have feedback or suggestions, we welcome you to reach out to Meghan Edberg, Director of Community Engagement at meghan.edberg@cureangelman.org.