Parent Weekly Update 03/31/17

Hi Parents,

Less information this week. If you did not read last week's blog, I highly advise you have a look.

Next Week's Group Schedule.

This week we have three group meetings; one is for an outing.

• 8-11:  Tuesday, April 4, from 4 to 6 PM. This group will meet at UltraZone in Sherman Oaks. Look for a separate email with complete information prior to group. Remember, we meet at UltraZone in Sherman Oaks, not at the office.
• 11-13: Wednesday, April 5, from 4:15 to 6:45 PM. Regular Office Meeting. Drop off and pick up at Gelsons
• 13-17: Thursday, April 6, from 4:15 to 6:45 PM. Regular Office Meeting. Drop off and pick up at Gelsons

Parent Webinar and  Meetings

Our Monthly Parent Webinar will be occurring on Wednesday, April 12. If you need to register, click here. You are welcome to bring up any topics you wish to clarify prior information, but we will also be discussing what kinds of social skills you are trying to help support and how that is occurring. Feel free to send me questions in advance and, of course you can participate online through active conversation and/or written questions.

I will announce the Parent Drop In Meeting dates for April in the next Update.

Are You Interested in Sending Your Child to the Summer Program?

We have already heard from about a dozen families and I am about to do our first mass mailing to clinicians and agencies, which will likely fill up the group. If you are interested in learning more, please click here to read through last week's post where I covered this in more detail. You can also find information on the updated www.lunchgroups.com website.

Click here to access Summer Interest Form

The LUNCH Groups Website has been Revised

I have revised www.lunchgroups.com. You should find all of the needed information on that site. Under Student Programs, you will find the Parent Portal. The password is identical to the one you use for LUNCH Points. Email me if you did not receive it last week. This is what it looks like:

Thanks for reading through this. Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions.

Med-Week News Flash 03/29/17

Hi Parents,

An important change has been made to the new website, The Parent Portal has been activated on the new site and it requires a password for access. See below:

You will be able to access all of the areas available in the previous Parent Portal. You just need to enter the password, which is being emailed to you separately.

Right now, this portal is in a very basic form just to have it available. I will enhance it over time.

Please contact me if you have any questions.


Last night's parent meeting included a robust discussion of different areas, some related to how to make IEP meetings a successful process. I will be adding some resources related to this. Let me know if there are other particular topics of interest.

BG

Parent Weekly Update 03/24/17

Hi Parents,

There's kind of a lot of information this week. I would strongly advise taking the time to read through it. In short, you will learn about:

1. Next week's Group schedule
2. Another drop in meeting for March
3. Summer Program details and survey
4. Information about an upcoming webinar and available discount for families not participating in LUNCH Groups^®
5. The New LUNCH Groups^®web site (and how to get to the old one).

1. Next Week's Group Schedule.

This week we have just one group meeting and it will be at the office

• 6-8:  Tuesday, March 28, from 4 to 6 PM.

This group will go to UltraZone on April 25. You will receive complete information prior to group (same for the 8-11 Year Group. They are going on April 4.

2. Additional Drop In Parent Meeting Added for March

I have added a third meeting for March, Tuesday, March 28, from 7:00-8:30pm, please click here to RSVP if you have not already done so.

3. Are You Interested in Sending Your Child to the Summer Program?

Here is the Summer schedule. As a time-limited program, we do not expect families to continue beyond the current school year, leaving that to be a parent decision. However for some, summer represents unique opportunity for us to continue working on relevant areas. Below is the revised schedule, which is different from previous years. The biggest differences are as follows:

1. We are grouping students into the same age ranges as in our School Year program.
2. There is no treatment offered for children under the age of 7 1/2 during summer.
3. We have eliminated the two week break that occurred half-way through the program in previous years.
4. We have slightly shortened the number of hours children attend (56 instead of 60 hours for 8-11 and 11-13; 39 instead of 40 hours for teens), however we have lengthened the amount of treatment time per session for all groups. The additional hours are being transferred to parent support hours.

At present we are about 50% full and will be announcing availability through the website and email to colleagues. We typically fill up by the end of April. If you are interested in your child participating in the program, please click here to indicate your interest. I will contact you individually to discuss whether we feel your child will benefit from the increased treatment focus that occurs during summer and what specific areas should be addressed. The materials fee for this summer is $350, which covers chartered buses, public transportation, event admissions, snacks and lunch, plus raffle prizes.

Click here to access Summer Interest Form

4. Dr. Gale Giving Nationwide Webinar, March 29th: 50% Discount available

Every few years I give a webinar for Lorman Educational Services entitled Difficult and Disruptive Students. I do not advise that LUNCH Groups^® families attend because you have already received information for 80% of what I'll be presenting. However, I am letting you know about it in case you know of other parents who may be interested in this information. They can attend at 50% off, using the information provided below.

• Click here to view the brochure from Lorman
• Click here to register online or families can call 866-352-9539 and use the discount code: F7211414 and priority code: 15999.

Again, you do not need to sign up for this. I don't think you would gain much from it.

5. Final Item: New Website for LUNCH Groups^®

I have been working to develop a cleaner version of the website, www.lunchgroups.com and it is now up and running. Because the website can take a couple of days to fully "propagate," (techie definition: when domain name servers (DNS) on the Internet world-wide update their records (DNS tables) to reflect any updates to domain names and IP addresses), it is possible you will encounter problems initially getting to it. (This is why I'm doing it over a weekend when we only have one group the following week).

If you encounter any problems, you have three choices:

1.  When you visit www.lunchgroups.com, it may give you a scary message saying it is unsafe. That isn't true, but you will have to click on "advanced" to say, "proceed anyway," and ignore the dire threats you receive. This is occurring because the SSL certificate hasn't been validated as soon as that process finishes, you should be able to access it as usual.
2. As a temporary solutions, you can visit https://bruce-gale-wc52.squarespace.com and everything will work fine.
3. If you wish to revisit the old site, just go to www.lunchgroups.net. 

Also, it is possible that your "browser cache" needs to be cleared. Type "Clear Google Chrome Cache" (or insert the name of your Browser, e.g., Internet Explorer or Safari instead of 'Chrome') and you will find clear directions on what to do. This can cause a problem because your browser is remembering the old version of the web site rather than reading the information from the internet. It will resolve in a few days either way and you will see this:

For those of you wondering, how to get to the parent portal, I'll have that installed on the new site by Monday.

I know, that was a lot of information. Thanks for reading through this. Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions.

Parent Weekly Update 03/17/17

Hi Parents,

Here is your weekly update.

This week we have three groups meetings: One is at the office and two for Laser Tag in Sherman Oaks:

Office Meeting

• 8-11:  Tuesday, March 21, from 4 to 6 PM.

This group will go to UltraZone on April 4. Details to follow.

Laser Tag Community Meetings

• 11-13:  Wednesday, March 22, from 4:15 to 6:45 PM
• Teen Group: Thursday, March 23, from 4:15 to 6:45 PM

You will receive complete information prior to group. Remember, we meet at UltraZone in Sherman Oaks, not at the office.

Next Week in the Office

• 6-8:  Tuesday, March 28, from 4 to 6 PM.

This group will go to UltraZone on April 25. Details to follow.

Parent Meetings for March

Webinars

The monthly Webinar was held on 3/8. If you missed it, you can log into the Parent Portal to access it. Our next webinar will be held on April 12 at 7:30pm. If you are one of the 13 families who still has not signed up to receive notification, click here to register.

Drop In Meetings: 

We held our two drop in meetings for March back on  3/9 and 3/18. One parent has requested to have a week-night meeting after 7pm. If you are interested in coming to a meeting on Tuesday, March 28, from 7:00-8:30pm, please click here to RSVP. So long as I have at least 3 families RSVP, then we will hold it on that date and time. Those of you who have sent an RSVP will receive confirmation, plus I will announce it in next week's Parent Update.

Summer Program Interest

Last week, I posted detailed information about the summer program. If you are interested and missed it, please click here to view.

Thanks for reading through this. Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions.

Parent Weekly Update 03/10/17

Hi Parents,

Here is the weekly update.

This week we have only one group that is meeting and it will be at the office:

• 6-8:  Tuesday, March 14, from 4 to 6 PM.
• This group will go to UltraZone on April 25. Details to follow.

Next Week in the Office

• 8-11:  Tuesday, March 21, from 4 to 6 PM.
• This group will go to UltraZone on April 4. Details to follow.

Next Week Community Outings

We're going to UltraZone in Sherman Oaks for laser tag and dinner.

• 11-13:  Wednesday, March 22, from 4:15 to 6:45 PM
• Teen Group: Thursday, March 23, from 4:15 to 6:45 PM

You will receive complete information the by Monday prior to group. Remember, we meet at UltraZone in Sherman Oaks, not at the office.

Parent Meetings for March

The monthly Webinar was held on 3/8. If you missed it, you can log into the Parent Portal to access it or you can click here.

Drop In Meetings: 

We held our first drop in meeting for March back on  3/9. Another one will be held at the office this coming Saturday 3/18, 10am-noon

Please RSVP for March Meetings by clicking here¸ (I had one parent write and tell me they had trouble with this link, but I'm not detecting any problems. If you encounter problems, please send me an email so I can check it out).

I am happy to conduct a third meeting this month, but attendance at the evening meetings has been very low the past couple of months. If you are interested in attending a parent drop in meeting and neither of the two dates listed above work for you, please use the RSVP link and indicate your preference as to when you would like to attend. I will announce a third date in an upcoming weekly update.

Summer Program Interest

I appreciate that some families have been in touch to inquire about the summer program. I will be sending a brief survey to determine interest in summer participation in the next week. It's important that you know not all school year group members will be eligible for the summer program. We base our decisions on the following:

1. How much progress has your child been making during School Year? If it is not significant, there needs to be compelling reasons for them to participate in our more intensive summer program. For example, a child may be impulsive, but has been responding positively to our intervention strategies. Similarly, they may be shy or have difficulties with conversations and are likely to benefit from the "all day" schedule that occurs during summer.
2. We also look at the pattern of parent participation. We will give preference to those families who have been actively involved in the parent support component. If you have not been attending parent drop in meetings during School Year at least every other month, you must be willing to commit to attending at least 4 meetings during the summer program. There will be weeknight and weekend meetings throughout the program.
3. Please remember, for those of you who receive RC funding, there is a materials fee for summer, $350, and also this is an RC decision. We will produce the necessary end of group report, but we don't act as advocates for our own program, leaving that decision to you and the RC CSC.

I will be including the survey in next week's Parent Update.  The dates are as follows for summer:

• 8-11: July 5-21, M/W/F, 8:30-3:30pm
• 11-13:  July 24-Aug 9, M/W/F, 8:30-3:30pm
• Teen:  July 11-27, Tu/Th, 9:00-3:30pm

That's it for now. Let me know if you have questions.

Mid Week News Flash 03/07/17

Hi Parents,

Tomorrow night is our 6th webinar. Hopefully, for those of you who haven't had a chance to attend, you've been catching up on the recorded webinars via the Parent Portal.

During tomorrow's webinar, I will be giving special priority to Parent Questions. Maybe you learned a bit about Social Learning Theory, but you don't know how to apply it. Perhaps you're confused about how to use Contingency Management (which we used this evening to help the 8-11 year olds quiet in about 5 seconds without telling them to "be quiet.")

Please send me any questions you'd like to have addressed tomorrow night. I will turn them into part of the PowerPoint for discussion. You are welcome to ask questions or make comments as well. Please put "Webinar Question" in the subject line of your email.

Thanks, look forward to seeing you online. If you haven't registered (there are about 10 of you who haven't), just click here to register.

That's it for now.

Parent Weekly Update 03/03/17

Hi parents,

Here is the weekly update.

This week we have the following groups and meetings;

• 8-11:  Tuesday, March 7, from 4 to 6 PM.
• 11-13: Wednesday, March 8, from 4:15 to 6:45pm
• 13-17: Thursday, March 9, from 4:15 to 6:45pm

Please note that, for the 8-11 year old group, we announced last time there would be a raffle. Instead, we took them for appetizers. The raffle will occur during the upcoming meeting.

Upcoming Parent Meetings for March

Webinar: 3/8 7:30-8:30pm. If you have not registered for the webinar, click here to sign up and you will automatically receive reminder notices.

Drop In Meetings: 

We will be holding drop in meetings on the following dates in March (remember, these are held at the office):

• Thursday, 3/9, 10:30am to 12:30pm
• Saturday 3/18, 10am-noon

Please RSVP for March Meetings by clicking here¸

As I wrote last time, I am happy to conduct a third meeting this month, but attendance at the evening meetings has been very low the past couple of months. If you are interested in attending a parent drop in meeting and neither of the two dates listed above work for you, please use the RSVP link above and indicate your preference as to when you would like to attend. I will announce a third date in an upcoming weekly update.

Laser Tag (UltraZone) is Coming

Our first community outing is coming up for the older groups (younger groups will go in April). Drop off and Pickup will occur there. I will send more details a week prior to our outing.

• 11-13 year old Group meets on Wednesday, 3/22 at UltraZone. 
• 13-17 Group meetings on Thursday, 3/23, at UltraZone.

The younger groups will go to UltraZone in April (See Group Calendar). They will not have a second outing because we are providing them with an extra raffle instead.

Mid-Session Progress Report Status

Nearly everyone should have received their child's progress report by now. If you do not have your report by the end of this week, please send me an email.

That's it. Contact me with any questions.