Cincinnati STRIDE, a free one-day workshop for children and teens who stutter and their families, returns from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, November 13, at the Hamilton County Educational Service Center, 11083 Hamilton Avenue in Cincinnati. The workshop is open to students who stutter from age 7 through grade 12, admission and on-site parking are free, and each student who attends will receive a free T-shirt.
STRIDE stands for Stuttering, Thriving, Resilient, Inclusive, Determined and Empowered. The program, renamed from Fluency Friday in 2025, is co-organized by speech-language pathologists at Cincinnati Children’s, faculty in the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the Pathways Forward Center for Stuttering, with support from the Hamilton County Educational Service Center. This year’s theme is “Be Your Own Champion.”
“We want the new name and the event to reflect our philosophy,” said Katrina Purcell, a speech-language pathologist at Cincinnati Children’s and one of the event’s organizers. “Talking shouldn’t be hard. With the right support, kids can learn it’s OK to stutter — and that their voices matter.” Purcell added: “Our message is simple: Keep talking. We have strategies to make communication easier, but it’s absolutely OK to stutter.”
During the day, students practice their speech, take part in group speech therapy sessions and join team-building and confidence-building activities alongside peers who stutter. They are paired with 42 UC speech-language pathology graduate students working as clinicians under the supervision of licensed speech-language pathologists. Parents and caregivers attend their own sessions, hear from stuttering experts and join panel discussions, including a panel of adults who stutter.
New in 2026, Cygni, a therapy dog at Hamilton County ESC, will be on site with her handler, and former FC Cincinnati player Garrett Halfhill, who played for the club in 2017 and 2018, will lead a lunchtime activity. The keynote speaker is Chris Mancini, leader of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Stuttering Association, and University of Louisville women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz, a person who stutters, will speak and join the adult panel. Longtime 103.5 WGRR personality Rockin’ Ron Schumacher returns to lead conversation stations and host the closing open mic.
More than 80 million people worldwide, about 1 percent of the global population, stutter, including roughly 3 million Americans. Organizers say young people who stutter can face stigma and feelings of isolation, and the workshop is designed to show them they are not alone. Its goal is not to “cure” stuttering, but to build confidence, resilience and self-advocacy, and to give families practical tools to use at home.
The program was co-founded 26 years ago as Fluency Friday by Irv Wollman, a UC professor of fluency disorders, and Diane Games, a Cincinnati-area speech-language pathologist. Space for November 13 is limited and advance registration is required; online registration closes Tuesday, November 3.