Page 5 - MidWeek Kauai - August 24, 2022

Giving Keiki A Little TLC With The Transforming Lives Center
Lee, a neural psychologist, who has more than a decade of experience in psycholo- gy and its related fields, as well as a supervised group of post-doc/graduate students and interns. When the idea for the Transforming Lives Center came about, Assets and its partners discussed a mutually beneficial model that would help families and future mental health care providers.
help them learn to the best of their ability. If there are gaps in a student’s learning, the center is there to help fig- ure out why.
Offerings will be robust, ranging from ADHD and dyslexia screenings to more comprehensive exams like psycho-educational assess- ments — basically anything and everything to meet a child where they’ re at and
And that’s the magic of Assets, and, by extension, its Transforming Lives Center. The educational model looks at each child as an individu-
“It’s about understanding, acceptance and affirmation because we’ re all different,” he adds. “The spice of life is that we’ re not all the same. Diversity is a good thing. We talk about these challenges we face as a society, and we need people who think about
To train up the state’s future innovators, children who are part of the Assets ‘ohana are equipped with the tools to take control of their learning and the assurance that they’re not alone.
“For these kids, they’ re marginalized, draw inac- curate conclusions about themselves; they’ve been given negative feedback or they look at classmates and see how they’ re not match- ingup.Tobepartofanor- ganization that helps them
“When you talk about re- sources for families and kids
AUGUST 24, 2022
KAUA‘I MIDWEEK 5
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“It’s a win, win, win,” Masa says. “Assets gets to advance its mission and these grad students get a re- ally great training site and can learn under the super- vision of Dr. Lee. We get to help the next generation of psychologists train and not only do assessments but also sit with parents and go over results with them. And by using this model, we help make testing affordable for families.”
“It’s really individualized, and we look at it holistical- ly,” Masa says. “We listen to the people on that child’s team — parents, teachers, etc. — and be a detective, providing assessments that will give more answers. Once we have that, we can start helping that team and build a road map of success for the child.”
When a child learns dif- ferently, their family goes on that journey with them, and Masa notes that many turn to Assets during times of high stress and frustration when they feel a sense of guilt or shame at the circumstance.
Ryan Masa stands in front of Assets School’s Transforming Lives Center, which is slated to open later this month at the K-8 campus.
“Parents will ask what they did wrong, and we tell them they didn’t do any- thing wrong; there’s noth- ing wrong with your child,” he says. “We don’t fix kids because they’ re not broken.”
al and provides personalized instruction and tools to help them succeed.
the world differently. People who learn different are really innovative.”
who learn differently, there aren’t many in Hawai‘i,” Masa says.
see themselves for how they truly are and help them find their tribe, that’s the part of my job I love.”
For more information, vis- it assets-school.org; and to inquire about a Trans- forming Lives Cen- ter assessment, email appointment@assets-school. org.
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