Dawn McCarty is a criminologist, childhood abduction survivor, author, and founder of Thrivers Speak Events. She is also the co-founder of the Nothing About Us, Without Us conferences, which center the voices and expertise of people who have lived through child psychological abuse, familial abduction, attachment disruption, and coercive family systems.
This CrowdRaiser will help bring Dawn from the United States to Perth to present “The Alienated Child’s Mind Is a Crime Scene” at the PASG 2026 Conference. It will also allow Dawn to meet and work in person with her research partner, Dr. Alyse Price-Tobler. Together, they will travel to Perth and speak as adult child survivors of child psychological abuse related to parental alienation and abduction, bringing the child’s lived experience into a professional conversation often dominated by adult perspectives.
Dawn’s presentation applies criminology, behavioral threat assessment, and cybersecurity principles to coercive control within a child’s developmental environment. It asks professionals to examine where the injury actually occurs: within the child’s attachment system, developing identity, nervous system, memory, and understanding of reality. The presentation will introduce the developing forensic framework behind her two books and offer a new way to recognize, investigate, and respond to this form of abuse.
Through Thrivers Speak® Events and Nothing About Us, Without Us (#NAUWOU), Dawn, Dr. Price-Tobler, and their colleagues have declared October 10, World Mental Health Day, also as Child Psychological Abuse Awareness Day. Their purpose is to increase recognition of psychological abuse that frequently remains hidden, misunderstood, or interpreted primarily through the conflict between adults.
Supporting this campaign will do more than place Dawn on a conference stage. It will bring two adult child survivors and research partners together, place survivor-informed analysis before an international professional audience, and help ensure that conversations about affected children include the adults who once were those children.
