NUS Lunchtime Forum: Conflicts and Challenges – Increasing Children's Capacity to Learn and Experience Life

— Brought to you by NUS Development Office

"Increasing Children's Capacity to Learn and Experience Life", part of the NUS Lunchtime Forum: Conflicts and Challenges series, took place on Monday, 22 June 2009.

Ms Susan Kaiser Greenland, Co-Founder and Executive Director of InnerKids, USA and Dr Lynette Su-mien Tay from the NUS Department of Psychology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, discussed the role of mindful awareness in the real lives of children today and the importance of addressing psychological factors when seeking to optimize children’s quality of life.

Programme

Listen to Ms Greenland speak on mindful awareness in the real-lives of children and their families.

Listen to Dr Tay speak on her research on child psychology and the applicable skills for helping children and their parents when faced with childhood illness.

Listen to the engaging conversation between Ms Greenland and Dr Tay with the audience.

About the speakers

Ms Susan Kaiser Greenland JD
Co-Founder and Executive Director of InnerKids, USA

Ms Greenland developed the InnerKids mindful awareness program for children and teens. She is a member of the clinical team for the Pediatric Pain Clinic at UCLA’s Mattel’s Children’s Hospital and Co-Investigator on a multi-year, multi site study on the impact of mindfulness practice in education at UCLA’s Semel Institute. Her book The Mindful Child will be published by Free-Press in January, 2010. Susan has played an important role in bringing secular mindfulness practice to children and teens in the West, and is committed to exploring the role, and beneficial secular applications, of mindful awareness in the real-lives of children and their families.

Dr Lynette Su-mien Tay, PhD
Department of Psychology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS

Dr. Tay is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in child and pediatric psychology. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at NUS, with joint adjunct appointments in the Departments of Psychological Medicine and Paediatrics. Prior to joining NUS, Dr. Tay was a faculty member of the Provence-Harris Early Childhood Section and the Psychology Training Program at the Yale Child Study Center. She also completed a two-year fellowship in Clinical Child Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center. Her research and clinical interests lay in the translation of the available research knowledge in the area of child psychology regarding the interface between psychological and cognitive functioning and physical health into applicable skills for helping children and their parents when faced with childhood illness.

About the chair

Prof Kua Ee Heok
Senior Consultant Psychiatrist, NUH

Prof Kua has a bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and had postgraduate training in Psychiatry at Oxford University, UK. He was a recipient of the Oxford Health Authority Scholarship as well as the China Medical Board Scholarship to pursue training in geriatric psychiatry at Harvard University, USA. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK).

Prof Kua has published over 180 scientific papers and 19 books on ageing, stress and addiction. He has won awards for his work, including first prize in ASEAN Psychiatry Research and the Sandoz Research Award for Gerontology. Furthermore, Prof Kua has been an invited lecturer at Harvard Medical School in Boston and the UN World Forum for Mental Health in New York. He is the President-Elect of the Pacific-Rim College of Psychiatrists and Editor of the Asia Pacific Psychiatry journal.