This week Slow Living Radio takes on the very important subject of Autism, a disorder which is seeing a rise over recent years. We welcome Susan Andrews, past Executive Director of Oak Hill School in Marin, a school dedicated to children with autism that is having huge successes. We then hear from Professor Robert L. Hendren, Professor of Psychiatry, USCF Department of Psychiatry and Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, and also a board member of Oak Hill school to learn more about the condition and current research findings.
Oak Hill School
Oak Hill School was founded in 2000 by a small group of
parents with children on the autism spectrum. After forming a Board of
Directors, advised by special educator and founding clinician Dr. Barbara
Kalmanson and several community educators, they purchased a school site in a
wooded former estate behind Marin City in Sausalito. School began with five
students and steadily grew after certification as a non-public school. Oak Hill
is licensed by the State of California to accept students with school district
funding as well as private tuition.
With a growing student body, Oak Hill moved in 2008 to
its current home on the Sunny Hills Services campus in San Anselmo. Now with 36
students and growing, Oak Hill benefits from extensive campus opportunities,
including 7 classrooms, speech and psychotherapy rooms, an occupational therapy
studio, offices, an organic vegetable garden, a chicken run, gymnasium, natural
and synthetic turf athletic fields and an outdoor swimming pool.
Susan Andrews
Past Executive
DirectorOak Hill School
Susan
has been a school director and non-profit board member for most of her working
life, most recently as the Executive Director of Oak Hill School, serving
families affected by autism. She remains a longstanding board member of the Eva
Gunther Foundation.
Susan was the Director of Presidio Hill School in San Francisco for 17 years,
and a board member and director of The
Edible Schoolyard
in Berkeley. Earlier leadership includes that at SF Cross Cultural Family
Center, and The Playgroup in Inverness. She remains co-owner with her husband
of Buddy Rhodes Studio. Susan is an active grandparent, and a resident of both San
Francisco and Mendocino County.
Robert L. Hendren, D.O.
Professor of PsychiatryUCSF Department of Psychiatry & Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute
UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
Neurodevelopmental Translational Outcomes Research Program (NTORP)
Co-Director, UCSF Dyslexia Center
STAR Autism and Neurodevelopment Program
Oak Hill School Board and Research
Dr. Hendren took his residency in general psychiatry at
the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, and his child and adolescent psychiatry
fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center. He is board certified in General as
well as Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
He has been on the faculty at the George Washington University School of
Medicine, the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, and the University
of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutger’s) - Robert Wood Johnson and New Jersey Medical
Schools. From 2001-2009, he was Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Director
and Tsakopoulos-Vismara Chair at the University of California, Davis M.I.N.D.
Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders).
His current areas of research and publication interests
are translational interventional outcomes research including clinical
pharmacology, nutraceutical and nutritional trials using biomarkers (MRI,
measures of inflammation, oxidative stress, immune function and
pharmacogenomics) to enhance resilience in neurodevelopmental disorders. He is
currently applying a targeted outcomes research approach in collaborative
projects with the Oak Hill School for youth with severe autism and
neurodevelopmental spectrum disorders in San Anselmo, CA and at the Charles
Armstrong School for youth with dyslexia in Belmont, CA
No comments:
Post a Comment