With Ana Homayoun, moderated by Vivien Keil, PhD
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Building Executive Functioning Skills
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Tuesday, December 6, 7:00pm
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Ana Homayoun has spent decades instructing students and educators about the value of executive function skills. Organization, managing distractions, cognitive flexibility, self-regulation and resilience when something doesn’t go as planned, are the skills fundamental to learning and achieving goals. Recent research shows that development of executive functioning skills is a more reliable predictor of success in academics and in life than test scores or socioeconomic status. However, these skills are often underemphasized. Ana will discuss the skills and habits that are crucial for success throughout school and college and how to nurture them in our students at every developmental stage.
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About our speakers
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Ana Homayoun is an author, speaker, and educator whose work focuses on helping students develop empathy and executive functioning skills in today's tech and social media-driven world. Her first book, That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week: Helping Disorganized and Distracted Boys Succeed in School and Life, remains a classic among parents and educators for the pragmatic approach to executive functioning. Her next book The Myth of the Perfect Girl: Helping Our Daughters Find Authentic Success and Happiness in School and Life, explores the real-life dilemmas of young women today. Her most recent book, Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in An Unbalanced Digital World, focuses on the impact of social media and technology in the classroom and school experience, and how we can support students in making better decisions online and in-real-life. Her upcoming book, Erasing the Finish Line: The New Blueprint for Success Beyond Grades and College Admissions, is slated to be released in late summer of 2023. She is the founder of Green Ivy Educational Consulting, a Silicon Valley educational consulting firm, and has spent over two decades working with students, parents, and educators around the world.
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Dr. Vivien Keil is a pediatric neuropsychologist and consultant at Children’s Health Council (CHC) in Palo Alto. She specializes in the developmental evaluation of young children and the neuropsychological evaluation of children and adolescents. Her goal as a clinician is to understand the whole child as she strives to balance the clinical perspective with a strengths-based approach. She is passionate about working collaboratively with parents to help them understand their child’s strengths and weaknesses so that they feel empowered to advocate for their child’s unique learning and mental health needs.
Dr. Keil’s current focus is on the teen mental health crisis and how to leverage technology to improve access to mental health support, especially for traditionally underserved youth. As the VP of Care Operations at BeMe Health, she oversees the coaching and clinical operations at BeMe, which is an app designed specifically for teens to help them improve their overall mental health and well-being. Teens from all over the country have access to skills-based mental health coaching via text that draws heavily from evidence-based approaches to care such as motivational interviewing, dialectical behavior therapy, and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Dr. Keil has over 20 years of experience working with children and families. She earned her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, San Diego and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
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