In 2005 the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Pedi­atrics (AAP) began an ini­tia­tive to pro­mote an approach to care among its mem­bers in which “…the pedi­atric team works in part­ner­ship with a child and a child’s fam­ily to assure that all of the med­ical and non-medical needs of the patient are met.” A crit­i­cally impor­tant focus of this approach is the role of the fam­ily and child — as devel­op­men­tally appro­pri­ate — in the devel­op­ment of an over­all plan of care.

This shared decision-making approach is espe­cially impor­tant for con­di­tions like ADHD where there is not a sin­gle treat­ment that is the most appro­pri­ate and pre­ferred option for all patients. How­ever, Read the rest of this entry »

Here you are have the bi-monthly Digest of our 10 most Pop­u­lar blog posts. (Also, remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive our blog RSS feed, or to our newslet­ter at the top of this page if you want to receive this digest by email).

Joanne Jacobs, edu­ca­tor, blog­ger and author of Our School: The Inspir­ing Story of Two Teach­ers, One Big Idea and the Char­ter School That Beat the Odds, par­tic­i­pates today in our Author Speaks Series with an excel­lent arti­cle on how “Schools won’t improve until admin­is­tra­tors and teach­ers can admit the prob­lems, ana­lyze what’s going wrong and try new strate­gies. Stu­dents won’t improve if they think they’re “spe­cial” just the way they are.” Enjoy, and feel free to add your com­ment to engage in a stim­u­lat­ing conversation.

We are very excited to announce a work­shop hosted jointly by the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tutes (OLLI) at Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity and Sharp­Brains (us!). We are offer­ing a three-day work­shop for edu­ca­tors and brain fit­ness prac­ti­tion­ers seek­ing instruc­tional cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the Sharp­Brains course, Exer­cis­ing Our Brains.

“Sharp­Brains has intro­duced the first science-based brain fit­ness cen­ter with infor­ma­tion and pro­grams to help peo­ple of all ages exer­cise their brains. They have offered the pop­u­lar Exer­cis­ing Our Brains course at SF State’s Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute (OLLI) since Octo­ber 2005.”

Are you see­ing all the arti­cles about Brain Fit­ness in the pop­u­lar press and wondering,“What is this all about?, “Can some­one help me nav­i­gate through all the pro­grams out there? “How is Brain Fit­ness rel­e­vant to me in my per­sonal life or at work?. As the lead­ing source of infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion on Brain Fit­ness, we have deliv­ered a series of cus­tomized train­ing ses­sions to com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions that com­bine mod­ules –includ­ing sci­en­tific overview, the indus­try trends and key play­ers, fun team-building exer­cises– that can be tai­lored to your organization’s spe­cific needs. Ses­sions last from 1 to 6 hours, depend­ing on your group’s com­po­si­tion and agenda and are deliv­ered either in per­son or via web con­fer­ence. If you want more infor­ma­tion on Sharp­Brains work­shops for your insti­tu­tion click on Work­shops.

Who should attend:

Edu­ca­tors and prac­ti­tion­ers who are seek­ing to teach the course Exer­cis­ing Our Brains. Ideal can­di­dates are: edu­ca­tors who are work­ing in the area of psy­chol­ogy, health, and well­ness, and who are ide­ally already affil­i­ated with learn­ing cen­ters eager to offer a brain fit­ness class.

Read the rest of this entry »