Arrowsmith in Brisbane!

The very good news is that the Shaping Brains Project of The Benevolent Society has now signed up for the Arrowsmith program at the Acacia Ridge Early Years Centre. The program will be for children - but for adults too!  Sheryl Batchelor emailed me with her exciting news a few days before she went to Toronto for her training.  She will be starting the candidate selection process when she comes back.

I'm sooo hoping that A-One will be a suitable candidate.

I chose my time to tell him about the program coming to Brisbane, because he hadn't shown any enthusiasm for it when I've raised it with him before.

Mum: A-One, you remember the Arrowsmith program? Well, it's now going to be available in Brisbane.

A-One: Well, I won't be going.

Mum: I think it could help change your life.  Even though we don't know that for absolute certainty, I still think it's the best thing that I've seen that could help you.  You could start thinking about a sound engineer course at TAFE or even something else if you wanted to.  The program could help you to learn and to write more easily - to be able to handle a course so much better than when you were at school.

A-One: It's not necessary.

Sisters: So what are you going to do if you don't do this?

Mum ... and Dad: You know the people who usually do the course are just normal, intelligent people. They just have some blockages in their otherwise perfectly fine brain, and they want to work to remove those blockages so that they can make the best use of the already good parts of their brain.

Grandparents:  A-One, this is very exciting for you.  You'd be at the cutting edge of a new frontier!

I think he'll come round.

Mind Up

A few weeks ago I attended a SPELD seminar presented by Sheryl Batchelor, the Program Director of the Shaping Brains Project funded by The Benevolent Society. 

I had previously not considered SPELD for A-One because many of its clients have dyslexia, and that is one area where A-One does not have a problem.  However, I had spoken to Sheryl late last year before embarking on A-One's brain training program, when she had advised me to be careful to use only evidenced based programs, and I was keen to meet her in person.

The seminar was about the Mind Up program, developed by the Goldie Hawn Foundation, in response to the number of children suiciding after 9/11.  The program helps children manage their self-regulation. Sheryl  first came across the program when she visited the Arrowsmith school in Canada about 6 months ago.  Mind Up is incorporated into the Arrowsmith program to help students manage the frustration they may feel when trying to maintain the sustained effortful attention to brain exercises. A lack of ability to self regulate can often be a student's first learning disability.

After seeing the program first-hand, Sheryl is keen to bring the Arrowsmith program to Brisbane for primary children and adults - to enable a family approach if that's what's required. After speaking with Sheryl after her presentation I emailed her to ask how I can also help bring the Arrowsmith program to Brisbane.