M Lucia Barbeyto
MARIA LUCIA BARBEYTO M.A.
Maria Lucía Barbeyto, known as Lucía, is the founder and CEO of Family Support Coalition. She was born and raised in Spain and have lived in Miami, Florida since 1999.
Lucía’s professional journey began in business. She graduated Summa Cum Laude as a first-generation college graduate from Keiser University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in International Business. She was inducted to the Delta Mu Delta Business Honor Society and later earned a master’s degree in Project Management.
Over more than a decade, Lucia held leadership roles in finance, business consulting, project management, and operations. But her most transformative journey began at home.
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Lucía is the mother of two young adults, Héctor and Lucía. When Héctor was two, he was diagnosed with autism. Because of developmental delays related to his autism, he was expelled from his childcare center. Years later, at eleven, Hector developed intractable epilepsy, adding another layer of complexity to an already demanding caregiving journey. To make things worse, in 2017, Hector had a serious accident while he was in the public school system, and his parents made the difficult decision to homeschool him permanently. Caring for Héctor changed the direction of Lucia's life. Faced with systems that often felt fragmented, difficult to navigate, and overwhelming, she began learning everything she could about disability rights, education, advocacy, and family support. What started as a mother’s search for answers gradually became a lifelong commitment to helping other families.
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In 2016, Lucia became a Certified Advocate after completing the Partner in Policy Making program offered by the Florida Developmental Disability Council. (FDDC). In 2019, she decided to further her advancement in learning about early childhood education, and co-founded a preschool for children born to 5 years old with and without disabilities, from which she was the director for 3 years. Lucia also served from 2018 to 2021 as a board member of the Florida State Advisory Committee for the Education of Exceptional Students (SAC) at the Florida Department of Education (FDOE).
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Her commitment to learning continued. Lucia earned a Graduate Certificate in Positive Behavior Support and a second master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis from the University of South Florida, becoming a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA®). During this academic journey, Lucia was selected as a Emerging Leader Representative. In 2023 Lucia joined the board of the Autism Society of Florida and also led its Spanish-language parent support group.
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Today, Lucía brings together something few professional paths provide: the perspective of a mother who has lived the realities of disability and caregiving, the experience of an advocate who has worked within systems, and the expertise of a professional in behavior, education, business, and organizational leadership. These experiences shaped her vision of what family support could look like: more connected, more accessible, more responsive to each family’s needs, and designed for the world we live in today. That perspective is at the heart of her work today. Lucía is committed to building organizations and programs that not only respond to the challenges families face, but are designed to anticipate their needs, connect the pieces, and provide more comprehensive support throughout their journey.
