HOLISTIC LEARNING
New centre gives new hope
Laura Elsaesser found it difficult to answer when asked where she thought her daughter would be without the Joshua Tree Learning Centre.
A seemingly innocuous question, it triggered an almost immediate flood of emotion.
She looked down as tears welled in her eyes and it was over a minute before she could get the words out.
“I feel she would be lost in the system,” she finally said. “Lost in the system and not having a place that allowed her to succeed.”
Ten-year-old Ainsley started attending tutoring lessons for math and a yoga class at the centre after her parents, Laura and Brent, noticed she was having trouble at school.
Laura said they would ask Ainsley how school was and she would reply ‘good,’ but not be able to tell them what she had done that day.
This fall, they went one step further in finding help for their daughter by having a psycho-educational assessment of Ainsley done at the centre.
Laura said the assessment was their ‘aha’ moment where they figured out where the disconnect was coming from for Ainsley at school.
“A lot of what her assessment shows is that she learns differently and captures that information and locks it away and can’t retrieve,” she said. “It’s meant a lot for us to understand why some things were happening or why she was struggling. It’s not a cookie-cutter world.”
Aimed at providing expertise, resources and support for individuals with disabilities and mental-health needs, the centre now works with Ainsley’s school to help her learn in the unique ways she needs to succeed.
“What’s very important to me is that people understand the core philosophy here is that everybody has the ability to learn, and if we don’t know what that ability is, we’re going to figure it out,” said Joshua Tree Learning Centre founder, Stacey Adelman, at an open house held Saturday.
A registered psychologist and educator, Adelman has worked in regular classrooms, special education, and as an educational psychologist and counsellor.
She created the centre in memory of her youngest brother, who had cerebral palsy. He died in 2000 at the age of 18.
Joshua’s unique learning needs inspired Adelman’s multi-disciplinary and strength-based approach to education.
“Joshua didn’t speak, so we had to find alternative ways for him to communicate,” said Adelman. “We tried all kinds of assistive devices to help him communicate when really he kinda came up with his own system through actions and through sounds. By just getting to know him, you could figure out what it is he was trying to say.”
“Every individual has a gift to contribute to the world, and we’re committed to figuring that out,” she said.
The centre opened in September, but Adelman recently added eight new positions to expand the practice and offer a wider variety of services and programs.
They do everything from autism and psycho-educational assessments to inclusive yoga and recreational dance programs.
Adelman’s team includes a second registered psychologist, a yoga instructor, a speech pathologist, an inclusive dance instructor and more. They will soon be joined by a social worker.
Together, they provide counselling, educational programs, speech and language therapy through remedial reading, writing and math programs, homework support and workshops for parents, children and professionals.
“I really believe learning needs to be holistic to meet a whole array of needs,” said Adelman. “I really want to address the social, emotional, recreational, physical and cognitive aspects of the whole person.”
It’s a model that is working for the Elsaesser family, particularly Ainsley, who’s learning there’s nothing wrong with her.
It’s a lesson that has come as a great relief to Laura and Brent.
“She has come so far in such a short time,” said Laura. “It’s been wonderful.”
I really want to address the social, emotional, recreational, physical and cognitive aspects of the whole person.