The original content for the Brain Health: It’s SPECtacular program has been developed by Dr. Gorman and was focused on brain awareness. Over the past several years, Dr. Gorman has been researching and reviewing the role that social, physical, emotional, and cognitive health play in a person’s overall mental health. As a result, she has begun to revise the program’s content to focus on the brain’s role in SPEC health.
The Brain Health: It’s SPECtacular youth series consists of 42 stories divided into 7 grade levels (pre-kindergarten through 5th grade). Each grade level has 6 stories based on 6 components – Brain Facts, Social Health, Physical Health, Emotional Health, Cognitive Health and Brain Health.
The program materials include:
- PowerPoint presentations and scripts
- Story General Information briefs (describes how the story content fits in with the curriculum content of the schools and lists story objectives based on student accomplishments)
- Science Behind the Story briefs (lists scientific references to back up story points and describes the correlation of the story points to the National Standards of the Next Generation Science Standards, American School Counselors Association Development Guidelines, National Health Education Standards & CDC)
- Videos of the stories (PowerPoint Videos for student and facilitator use and Character Videos)
- Training tips (for presenting the stories to various age groups)
- Activities Summary (lists the experiments, games, songs, physical activities, crafts, drawings, etc. which have been developed or found available online which reinforce the story concepts of the stories)
- Activity Instructions (describes each activity and includes a list of materials needed, instructions on how to do the experiments, and videos of experiments)
- Activity Videos (each activity reinforces concepts from the story and the activity videos are videos of the relevant slides from the story)