Contents
- Annual Fund Appeal 2009: Some ways to support our work
- Upcoming Events: Interventions for ADHD & a College Panel
- EdRev 2010: Register now!
- Teachers' Education Network: 2010 Teacher Workshops
- SAFE Voices: News and upcoming activities
- Book Review: The Watergiver by Joan Ryan
- Other News: Mooney wins LD Achiever prize
Annual Fund Appeal 2009
In just 6 years PEN has become the Bay Area’s premier grass roots resource for parents, professionals and students dealing with learning and attention issues.
Our Financial Principles
- To maximize accessibility we offer low membership and attendance fees (with full scholarships available)
- Your donations go directly to program; administrative costs are covered by board giving and membership fees
- All board members contribute financially
- Volunteer-based operations minimize overhead
2009-2010 Expenses
2009-2010 Income
In 2009-2010 we will serve over 3,000 families and 100 schools.
Here are some ways to support...
Parents
| Entire Speaker Series | $12,000 |
| 1 Speaker Series event | $800-$5,000 |
| 1 Annual membership scholarship | $35 |
Teachers
| 1 Workshop speaker | $3,000-$5,000 |
| 1 Discussion evening | $500-$1,000 |
| 1 Scholarship to a workshop | $75 |
Students
| Project Eye-to-Eye, 1 year | $12,000 |
| 1 Speaker | $1,000 |
| 1 SAFE Voices meeting | $100-$500 |
EdRev 2010
| Keynote speaker | $10,000 |
| 1 Breakout session | $1,000 |
| 1 Attendee scholarship | $50 |
We rely on your generosity to directly support our programs. Your contributions literally change the lives of kids with learning and attention difficulties.
All donations will be matched up to $20,000 by 2 generous donors.
Upcoming Events
Interventions That Work for ADHD
Friday, December 11, 2009
9am - 11am. The Exploratorium, San Francisco.
With Betsy Corrin, Ph.D., Clinical Child Psychologist. Parents and educators will learn strategies to manage their child's behavior more effectively. Participants will learn how to improve their child's focus, on-task behavior, sustained attention, behavioral compliance, and task completion, using empirically validated techniques of behavior management. We will discuss how to avoid control battles and improve family relationships. Click here to register!
A Panel of College Students with Learning and Attention Difficulties
Thursday, January 7, 2010
7pm - 9pm. Immaculate Conception Academy, San Francisco.
Applying to college or choosing a college for the student with
learning and attention difficulties is an important and sometimes
difficult and confusing process. Hear from the experts:
college students with learning and attention difficulties.
Our students, all founding members of SAFE Voices, will discuss their
experiences with:
- Whether and how to disclose a learning disability
- How they determined the best fit and scope of support for their college choices
- What they as student with learning and attention difficulties found when they arrived at college
- How to navigate and manage college life – academically and socially
The discussion will be facilitated by educational therapist and SAFE Voices advisor Nancy Cushen White. Click here to register!
EdRev 2010: Register now!
EdRev 2010: The LD JourneyFrom Self-Awareness to Successful Independence
EdRev 2010 will again be held at the unique venue, AT&T Park in San Francisco, on Saturday, April 17, 2010 from 9 am to 4 pm. This year’s theme, The LD Journey – From Self-Awareness to Successful Independence, highlights the need for supportive services spanning the child’s journey from early intervention through career launch.
The day begins with two speakers renowned for their work in the field of learning and attention difficulties: Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., Director of The Hallowell Center and author of Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction, and Jonathan Mooney, Co-Founder of Project Eye-to-Eye and author of Learning Outside the Lines and The Short Bus. The day continues with a resource fair, additional speaker sessions, technology demonstrations, field activities and much, much more.
We would also like to invite LD/ADHD-related service providers to participate as exhibitors, sponsors and advertisers at EdRev 2010. Sign up at ParentsEducationNetwork.org/Opportunities.
Teachers' Education Network
TEN is excited to announce 2 All-day Teacher Training Workshops in 2010:
A Praiseworthy Brain in Search of a Brainworthy School
Friday,
February 5, 2009
9am - 3pm. Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
With Robert Sylwester, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Oregon. Dramatic developments in the cognitive neurosciences are providing us with an unprecedented understanding of the modular organization and extended development of our social brain. This workshop will (1) describe these new perspectives with a focus on the central roles that movement, mirror neurons, and the arts play in the development and maintenance of our brain, and (2) discuss their curricular and instructional implications. Click here to register!
The
Classroom Management of ADD & Anxiety
Friday, April 16, 2010
9am - 3pm. Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
With Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. Intended for audiences of teachers and other school people, this lecture focuses on stress and the non-medication management of ADD in the classroom. The presentation offers specific, concrete, and practical ways to manage ADD in a mainstream classroom. The same principles can be used in other settings, such as home or special classrooms, as well. Click here to register!
SAFE Voices
- SAFE’s pot luck dinner is scheduled for Friday, December 11, 2009 (6PM – 8PM). Interested in learning more about SAFE and meeting SAFE members? Join us by registering online.
- Next SAFE meeting: January 9, 2009. Join us to learn about EdRev and the vital student role. Photos for EdRev 2010 will be taken on January 9th. Register here!
- Applying to college? Worried about applying to college? Hear from the experts: our college SAFE members, on January 7th. More information and registration here.
- SAFE’s chapter of Project Eye-to-Eye is well underway. Our amazing SAFE mentors will meet the parents of students with learning disabilities on December 11th at SFUSD’s Cesar Chavez School. SAFE welcomes several new mentors from the Immaculate Conception Academy and Stuart Hall High School who are joining in this year’s mentoring program.
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SAFE welcomes Eli Kersh-Oliva to PEN. Eli is a former Project Eye-to-Eye coordinator from UC Santa Barbara, and shares the gift of dyslexia and ADHD. He is our new coordinator for SAFE and joins Brian Thomas and Nancy Cushen White, SAFE’s faculty advisors from its inception. In January, SAFE will welcome a third faculty advisor, Frances Dickson. Eli shares his experience and enthusiasm for SAFE, our powerful student voice, in this statement:
"Having been diagnosed with dyslexia in the first grade, I was faced with a long uphill battle to get to where I am today. The biggest obstacle I had, which many LD students and parents can relate to, was myself. My good friend Dave Flink from Project Eye-to-Eye put it best when he said "success is not achieved because of a high IQ but because of high self-esteem". Once I got into a UC after community college I realized the reason I was able to succeed is that I was able to overcome all the negative voices in my head. So I began to give back, to dedicate myself to changing the paradigm and lexicon of the LD community. Now, I have found a place where others have that same goal, a place to create "SAFE Voices".
"I have recently been asked to work with SAFE voices to help these students create a community for themselves. Too often LD students struggle through in silence not knowing who else deals with the same challenges and feelings. Jonathan Mooney, a role model to us all, talks about breaking this silence, and has recently touted PEN and SAFE as the leading organizations in the LD rights community. I am honored and proud to be a part of this and feel truly blessed to help lead this cause.
"The students of SAFE Voices have a huge responsibility in their hands. They are speaking for all of us; their goal is to show the 'normal' people what it is like to navigate through 'normal' institutions and deal with the labels and stigmas that have been given to us.
"Their goal is not only to spread awareness and to challenge the way people see the role of education, but also to learn from one another, share their experiences and create a community. They develop friendships and mentoring relationships, find passions, talents and skills, and gain self-esteem through leadership and cooperation. My hat goes off to the founders of PEN and SAFE and the advisors and facilitators who made SAFE what it is today. It is a run by the students, motivated by the students, and sustained by the students."
Book Review
The Water Giver by Joan Ryan
Review by Julie Traun
On October 29th, PEN hosted Joan Ryan, author of The Water Giver: The Story of a Mother, a Son, and their Second Chance. Those of you who regularly followed Joan’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle knew she had a kid just like ours. Her infrequent but lively descriptions of her son, her impassioned and well researched discussions of special education foretold a larger story: a mother of a child on a different journey than most – our journey.
Like all parents of children with learning and attention difficulties, Joan struggled mightily to understand and support her son. “School did not play to Ryan’s strengths: his imagination, his big heart, his energy. By third grade, school became almost torturous for him – and us.” “School got worse each year for Ryan. Homework ended in tears and tantrums most evenings….His anxiety grew, which made him even more impulsive.”
In The Water Giver, Joan not only chronicles Ryan’s struggles vividly while simultaneously delighting us with his buoyant, loving character, but with gutsy honesty, she confesses that her relentless pursuit to “fix” Ryan precluded real mothering. “I seemed to believe that I could, with enough research and hard work, construct the child I wanted him to be. I became, over the years, less his loving mother and more his relentless reformer. I was not the mother I imagined I would be. I was not the mother my son needed. Then one horrible summer afternoon, I got a second chance.”
At 16 years of age Ryan suffered a traumatic head injury while
skateboarding. In a flash of a second, every parent’s worst nightmare
became Joan’s reality. Her “second chance” at mothering is stunning.
Her transformative relationship with her son - as both mother and son
heal – is so beautifully told, it’s impossible to put down. You feel
you know Ryan, Joan and Barry and you are indeed privileged to share in
the intimacy of this story and this family. You celebrate every step
toward recovery, agonize with every setback and as you accompany Joan
on this journey, you find you come to deeply embrace and celebrate your
own child in ways previously unimagined. The Water Giver is a true gift
to all parents, but it is a particularly poignant gift to parents of
children who learn differently. Thank you, Joan for your courageous
insight and this brilliant, provocative and healing work.
Other News
Jonathan Mooney wins LD Achiever Award
Dear
Friends,
I am pleased to share with you some more good news this fall: The Lab
School of Washington (DC) has honored me with their Outstanding
Learning Disabled Achiever Award! I am very thrilled to receive this
award and would like to thank you for your support of my message about
learning differences over the years.
I will accept the Outstanding Learning Disabled Achiever Award at The
Lab School's annual gala to raise awareness about learning
disabilities, which will include a keynote address by Vice President
Joseph Biden and is emceed by George Stephanopoulos, on Wed., Nov. 11.
Some previous awardees include Cher, Billy Bob Thornton, Richard
Avedon, Magic Johnson and James Carville.
During the day, I will meet with Lab School students to encourage them
and answer questions about learning differently. For more information
about the Lab School, please visit http://www.labschool.org
I hope to be able to bring my message to your community soon.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Hear Jonathan's message at EdRev 2010! Click here to register now!
Volunteers
Many thanks to the following members who volunteered their time for various jobs this month:
Ann Farris
Barbara McGettigan
If you are interested in volunteering for PEN, please contact us!