Professor Paula Barrett - The importance of sensory learning and play

In this short video, Professor Paula Barrett explains the importance of sensory learning and play for children.

Professor Paula Barrett is well known for being the author of a number of resiliency programs used around the world - Fun Friends, Friends for Life, My Friends (a resilience program for teens), and Adult Resilience Program. These programs which are often run in schools and community groups are evidence-based resilience programs boasting years of published research to show their positive effects on people's ability to cope.

About Professor Paula Barrett (taken from Wikipedia article and her information website) -

Dr. Paula Barrett is the Founding Director of Pathways Health and Research Center, which has since its inception in 2003 helped numerous families worldwide with its prevention and cure of anxiety and depression, and promotion of resilience programs. Pathways Health and Research Center was a 2008 Telstra Business Awards finalist.

Paula is also a patron of the 'Pathways to Resilience Trust'. This trust implements the two programs that she has designed for the treatment of depression, panic and anxiety related disorders. The FRIENDS for Life programs is aimed primarily at adolescent and older individuals while the Fun Friends program is for children below 7 years of age. These programs are being actively used in Australian schools in areas which rank low on social indicators. The FRIENDS for Life Program itself is available in 12 languages and is being officially used by 18 countries. Besides even the WHO has recognized the FRIENDS for Life program after conducting evidence based review.

Dr. Barrett is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker.

Paula Barrett

Paula Barrett is the founding Director of the innovative research-based positive psychology resilience institute, Pathways Health and Research Centre. In 2008, Pathways Health and Research Centre was a Finalist in the Telstra Business Awards in the category of Innovation. Since its creation in 2003, Pathways has helped innumerable families worldwide.

Paula Barrett

Paula Barrett was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at the end of her high school studies, a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1991 to complete her research Doctorate, the National Australian Association for Cognitive and Behavior Therapy Early Career Award for her research and innovation in the field of Clinical Psychology in 1998, and the National Australian Psychology Society Award for outstanding scholarship in the discipline of Psychology in 1999.

What is Resilience? Professor Paula Barrett resilience expert explains

Professor Paula Barrett is well known for being the author of a number of resiliency programs used around the world – Fun Friends, Friends for Life, My Friends (a resilience program for teens), and Adult Resilience Program. These programs which are often run in schools and community groups are evidence-based resilience programs boasting years of published research to show their positive effects on people’s ability to cope.

About Professor Paula Barrett (taken from Wikipedia article and her information website) -

Dr. Paula Barrett is the Founding Director of Pathways Health and Research Center, which has since its inception in 2003 helped numerous families worldwide with its prevention and cure of anxiety and depression, and promotion of resilience programs. Pathways Health and Research Center was a 2008 Telstra Business Awards finalist.

Paula Barrett is also a patron of the ‘Pathways to Resilience Trust’. This trust implements the two programs that she has designed for the treatment of depression, panic and anxiety related disorders. The FRIENDS for Life programs is aimed primarily at adolescent and older individuals while the Fun Friends program is for children below 7 years of age. These programs are being actively used in Australian schools in areas which rank low on social indicators. The FRIENDS for Life Program itself is available in 12 languages and is being officially used by 18 countries. Besides even the WHO has recognized the FRIENDS for Life program after conducting evidence based review.

Dr. Barrett is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker.

About Paula Barrett

From her base in Brisbane, Dr Paula Barrett teaches kids, their families and adults the skills to be resilient and overcome anxiety, depression and stress.

She is the one they turn to around the world if the kids are not coping and stressed out.

She's petite and softly-spoken but behind her Portuguese accent, she is a determined campaigner and eager to see more Australian children access her Friends for Life program.

Her centre, Pathways Health and Research Clinic, was also a recent finalist in the Telstra Business Awards for Queensland.

And she is also among the Queenslanders named in Qweekend magazine's 2008 Best and Brightest issue, which appears in The Courier-Mail  this Saturday.

Qweekend's annual review looks at 50 people from the "smart state" who, not content with success at home, are taking their inspiration and innovation to the world in fields ranging from fashion and the arts to medicine, science, sport and business.
Dr Barrett's Friends course is the only one endorsed by the World Health Organisation, as well as a number of top-ranking journals, for its treatment of anxiety in children and adolescents.

Despite this, the boffins at Education Queensland won't implement her course in the state schools where it teaches kids to stay focused, work together and builds their confidence.

However education bureaucrats in Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Iceland, Germany, Thailand, Norway, Japan and New Zealand have all embraced her skills, research and successful programs.

And work is ongoing to have the program implemented in even more countries.

In British Colombia, Canada, every Grade 5 student, some 65,000 kids, will do Dr Barrett's Friends for Life course this year.

Brisbane-based Dr Barrett, 46, has unlocked some of the mysteries of childhood and adolescent anxiety through two decades of research, and the intervention strategies she's developed have earned international recognition.

Her Friends for Life program is used in schools and clinics in 15 countries including New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, the US, Britain, China and Saudi Arabia.

Source : Paula Barrett, child psychologist is Businesswoman of the Year