Supporting a gifted child
is often challenging.
As parents and educators, it can be difficult to understand how best to meet the complex needs of gifted children. During the school year, IEA offers complimentary monthly Gifted Support Group meetings featuring professionals who are experts on various aspects of gifted youth. These meetings provide support and community, a venue for shared discovery, and a space to exchange resources and ideas. Sharing experiences with other parents and educators who interact with gifted children has proven to be enormously helpful.
Click here to view the printable schedule.
In order to assist the widest range of families, we will be livestreaming the meetings on our Facebook page, unless otherwise noted.
Ms. Jones has been an educator, researcher and administrator of educational programs for over 30 years. She holds a Master’s degree in special education from the University of Southern California and has completed doctoral work in the field of educational policy and learning theory. Ms. Jones served as the Associate Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and the Director of the Western Region for ten years prior to founding the Institute for Educational Advancement in 1998. While at CTY, Elizabeth served as Co-Principal Investigator with Dr. Sally Ride and Dr. JoBea Way for a NASA and National Science Foundation sponsored educational initiative called KidSat. She received recognition from the National Diffusion Network for the creation and implementation of exemplary programs for underserved gifted students and specialized in the intellectual, social and emotional needs of students. She created and implemented the SDB teacher recognition program and expanded the scope of services at CTY. As President of IEA she was contracted to assist in the creation and implementation of the Davidson Young Scholars program. She went on to lead in the creation and implementation of the award-winning Yunasa summer camp for the gifted and the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship program. Ms. Jones currently serves on the Advisory Board for GRO Gifted and the Board of Directors for Math Academy.
Vivien is a neuropsychologist who specializes in the developmental evaluation of young children and neuropsychological evaluation of children and adolescents. In her role at CHC, she frequently works with youth with gifted or twice-exceptional profiles. Her goal is to understand the whole child, and she strives to balance the clinical perspective with a strengths-based approach. In addition, since 2013, Dr. Keil has also worked at the Gifted Support Center in San Mateo, first as an examiner conducting cognitive assessments on children and eventually as an advisor helping to guide their assessment model. Dr. Keil has over 15 years of experience working with children and families. She completed her predoctoral clinical internship at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) and her postdoctoral fellowship at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Following licensure, she worked at the Neurobehavioral Clinic and Counseling Center in Orange County with a focus on conducting comprehensive neuropsychological assessments of children and adolescents with both psychiatric and medical diagnoses. In addition, she was the supervising psychologist in the Department of Outpatient Psychiatry at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, where she focused on assessment and therapy with diverse and underserved populations. Dr. Keil earned her BS in cognitive neuroscience from Brown University, graduating magna cum laude. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California, San Diego.
Ann founded Gifted Support Center in 2011 in direct response to the lack of services and support available for gifted children and their families in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ann spearheaded the creation of Leave Your Sleep for Education, an interdisciplinary language arts curriculum that uses poetry and music as stimuli to learning across disciplines for PreK–8 grade students. LYSFE is a complimentary online curriculum platform for teachers. She serves as past-president for the California Association for the Gifted, on the advisory board for the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, and on a public policy committee for the Institute for Educational Advancement. Ann is passionate about finding solutions to support diverse gifted learners. She currently works in her local community, at the state level, and at national levels of advocacy to support gifted learners and their families.