The Benelux Chamber of Commerce in China and BCIS (Beijing City International School) are delighted to invite you to a Workshop on May 6 2011:
Challenges in a new country
A Transition Tool to Facilitate Social/Emotional Closure
In the 2001 book Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, Dr. David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken identified a group of globally nomadic children they termed Third Culture Kids (TCKs). Although these children acquired many advantages due to their mobility, they also experienced difficulties associated with frequent, and often abrupt, relocations. RAFT was created as a tool to facilitate social/emotional closure prior to these transitions. The four steps of RAFT ensure that children, and their families, reach closure in one location before moving to another because of a parents professional career move. Learning how to use RAFT is a life skill that will help anyone of any age to make any kind of transition whether it is changing jobs or moving to a new location.
This workshop will be conducted by Dr. Reed Rhodes, the elementary school learning support teacher from Beijing City International School (BCIS), who will present a five-part transition model that illustrates the kinds of difficulties experienced by individuals when they make almost any kind of transition. He will then explain the four steps of RAFT using pictures, gestures, and key words.
Dr. Reed Rhodes
Dr. Reed Rhodes received a Ph.D. in special education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985. Since that time, he has taught students with exceptional learning needs in a variety of settings, including a preschool for children with developmental disabilities, an inner city high school in Virginia, a remote barrier island off the coast of North Carolina, and the maximum security unit of Juvenile Hall in San Francisco.
In 1995 Reed was one of six finalists for North Carolina Teacher of the Year. In 1996 he was hired to set up and coordinate the learning support program at the International School of Phnom Penh where he worked until 2005. From 2005 until 2007 he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he was named Outstanding Professor in 2007 by the Services for Students with Disabilities program. In 2007 he was hired to set up and coordinate the learning support program at Beijing City International School.