Professional & Community Education Programs by Dr. Monastra
One of the most enjoyable and rewarding times for our staff is when we get to travel to a community or provide an online webinar and share our knowledge and experiences with parents, educators, and health care providers.
Watch Dr. Monastra describe how we diagnose and treat children with ADHD
Interested in watching the complete interview between Dr. Monastra and Dr. Carlson, and observe a treatment session?
Workshops for Parents, Grandparents, and other Caregivers
1. What do we know about ADHD: What can you do to help?
This three hour workshop provides an overview of the causes of ADHD, the process for diagnosing this condition, and the importance of a multi-modal approach to treatment. Dr. Vincent Monastra will review, in detail, how medications work, how proper nutrition can promote better response to medication and reduce side effects, and how parents and school districts can collaborate in developing an educational program for school success. This program will also provide an overview of our award winning parenting program.
2. Parenting Children with ADHD: 10 Lessons that Medicine Cannot Teach
This three hour workshop presents the foundation of our award winning parenting program. Dr. Monastra will teach the core “10 Lessons” and participants will have the opportunity to practice essential parenting techniques as part of the workshop experience. The workshop will highlight how techniques like “Time Stands Still”, Positive Practice, Positive Punishment, Work for Play, and other innovative strategies can be successfully used to improve organizational skills, problem-solving abilities, emotional control, and other social skills.
Workshops for Adults with ADHD
1. Ready for Love
Experience teaches us that “if you don’t heal it, you’ll probably marry it”. In this three-hour experiential workshop, Donna Monastra, LMSW will help adults understand the mystery of attraction and how to stop choosing partners wo leave them unfulfilled and frustrated. Donna will guide participants in recognizing essential, unmet childhood needs, their habitual but unsuccessful strategies for achieving these needs, and how to begin walking a path to an enduring, satisfying love.
2. Empowering Women for Total Health: Preparing your body, mind, and spirit for wellness at 40 and beyond!
Wellness is much more than a lack of disease. It is about feeling strong, energetic and vibrant. In this three-hour workshop, Donna Monastra (LMSW) will teach participants about the latest medical breakthroughs regarding the role of nutrition and dietary
supplements in promoting a sense of well-being. They will also learn how unexpressed emotions remain I n the body like time bombs that cause a wide range of illnesses. Participants will also discover healthy ways to release unwanted emotions and how spiritual practices like prayer, meditation, forgiveness, and visualization can lead to optimal health and well-being.
Workshops for School Districts
1. Uncommon Solutions to Common Learning and Behavioral Problems
This three-hour interactive workshop by Dr. Vincent J. Monastra is intended to help educators and school counselors become familiar with the most common types of physical and psychological causes of chronic academic and behavioral problems and to introduce them to instructional, motivational, and counseling strategies that can be used to promote the educational and social development of their students. This workshop will highlight medical conditions and lifestyle choices that affect attention, concentration, memory, learning and mood Emphasis will be placed on instructional techniques useful in addressing chronic reading, mathematics and writing problems.
2. Bringing Out the Best in Students with ADHD
In this three-hour workshop, Dr. Vincent J. Monastra presents the types of school-based interventions that have been demonstrated to be helpful in promoting the success of students with ADHD. Topics presented in this workshop include: “What causes ADHD?”, “How do medications work?”, What does nutrition have to do with ADHD?”, Responsibility, Motivation, Discipline and ADHD”, and “The Foundations of an effective IEP or 504 Plan for Students with ADHD”.
Workshops for Colleges and Universities
1. One and Done: Strategies for Preventing Academic Failure in the 1st Year of College
Every year, parents spend tens of thousands of dollars attempting to “launch” their children into adulthood through the college experience. Unfortunately, a substantial number of students are unable to manage college responsibilities and “flunk” out of college within their first two semesters. In this 2.5 hour workshop, intended for college students, parents, and interested faculty and staff, Dr. Vincent Monastra will review the Top Five Paths to Failure, emphasizing the importance of nutrition and sleep habits on academic performance at the college level.
2. Having Trouble Focusing? Maybe it’s Something You Didn’t Eat?
Most colleges and universities offer seminars for students to promote success at the college level. However, the adverse effects of poor dietary and sleep habits, and the absence of exercise on academic performance can sometimes get lost in the middle of it all. In this 90-minute workshops, Dr. Vincent Monastra will help students understand the impact of dietary and sleep habits on attention, concentration, and memory. Simple, practical strategies for boosting dietary intake of protein, establishing sufficient sleep habits, and ways to improve attention through exercise and computerized attention training games will also be reviewed.
Workshops for Hospitals, Clinics, Mental Health and Social Service Agencies
1. Unlocking the Potential of Patients with ADHD: A Model for Clinical Practice
This three hour program is intended for health care providers. In this workshop, Dr. Vincent Monastra provides a comprehensive, research-based perspective on the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in patients ages 5 to 70. This program is intended for physicians, nurse practitioners, psychologists, social workers, and other health care providers. The topics include a presentation of the multiple medical conditions (and lifestyle choices) that can cause symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity and a review of the neurological characteristics of ADHD (and their causes). Dr. Monastra will also review the use of FDA approved QEEG assessment procedures in clinical practice, and how this type of information can improve medication response and sustained use. Other topics that are covered in detail include collaborating with schools to develop accommodation and Individual Education Plans, the use of neurofeedback in clinical practice and ways to incorporate our Parenting and Life Skills Programs in clinical settings.
2. Integrating QEEG Assessment Techniques and Biofeedback into Clinical Practice
In this three hour workshop program, Dr. Vincent Monastra shares three decades of clinical research and practice with psychologists, social workers, and other health care providers who are seeking guidance in using QEEG-based Assessment and Treatment Techniques. This program features a detailed presentation of QEEG assessment procedures that have been indicated for use by the FDA (because they improve diagnostic accuracy). The workshop also reviews in detail, the empirically supported neurofeedback training protocols developed at our clinic, which served as the foundation of the approach adopted by the ICAN Study (a 5-year-NIH funded double blind, placebo controlled clinical trial for children with ADHD. In addition, this program will highlight ways to overcome the pitfalls and problems that can occur in providing neurofeedback, as well as, the kinds of “coaching” strategies that have been developed to help patients remain motivated as they learn how to be still and “look and listen with a purpose”.
3. Offering Parenting and Life Skills Programs in Schools, Clinics and Community Centers
Although medication and neurofeedback are quite helpful in improving attention and behavioral control, children and teens with ADHD often need to be taught important life skills. Over the past twenty years, our clinic has developed, investigated and conducted parenting and life skill classes that have led to the publication of two guidebooks:
Parenting Children with ADHD: 10 Lessons that Medicine Cannot Teach (APA Books)
Teaching Life Skills to Children and Teens: A Guide for Parents and Counselors (APA Books).
Unlocking the Potential of Patients with ADHD: A Model for Clinical Practice
These books provide step by step instructions for how to apply the principles taught at our clinic in the home, clinic, school and other community settings. However, it is not uncommon for potential group leaders to seek our guidance about how to conduct these classes. This three hour program is intended to offer such guidance and can be provided live or via webinar formats. In addition, video presentations of our parenting program are available for group leaders to use. These videos show me leading each of the parenting classes and can provide the foundation for classes that you would want to provide in your school, community center, or clinical practice. Ongoing consultation is also available from Dr. Vincent Monastra, if needed, to help you successfully launch your parenting or life skills program.
4. Supervision/Mentoring of Clinical Practitioners
Unless your clinical training program or internship provided you with instruction, and ongoing case consultation and supervision in the use of QEEG-based assessment or treatment techniques, it is likely that you will benefit from developing a relationship with a BCIA certified senior fellow who is skilled in the use of these procedures and can guide you in the early years of clinical practice. At our clinic, Dr. Vincent Monastra provides this type of case consultation and mentoring services at our clinic, in hospitals and community clinics around the country, and through webinars and GotoMeeting sessions.