Event(s) Summary
Number of Events Organized During Brain Awareness Week:
3
Year:
2022
Type of Events Held:
- Conference/Forum
- Online/Virtual
Target Audiences:
- Other
- Patients & Caregivers
- Professionals
- Seniors
- Other: Parkinson's patients; general public
Approximate Number of People Reached:
871
Details of Major Brain Awareness Week Events/Activities:
The Health + Wellness Center at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan (the JCC) produced four virtual webinars during Brain Awareness Week (BAW). These four dynamic discussions on the human brain, moderated by Caroline Kohles, Senior Director of Health + Wellness, were offered free of charge to the general public, and included targeted marketing and outreach to our entire JCC community with a special focus on our older adult and Parkinson’s Care community.
The sessions were presented live via Zoom to an audience that included participants from all over the world. Each session was recorded and posted on our Vimeo channel, with links sent to all BAW registrants and social media followers.
The four presentations took place from March 14th through the 17th. The topics and guest speakers were as follows:
KEEP YOUR BRAIN HEALTHY IN THE DIGITAL AGE: Sherry Skyler Kelly, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist and clinical neuropsychologist
THE BRAIN AND ART: Visual artist Naomi Andrée Campbell and neurologist Felice Ghilardi, MD
ANXIETY AND THE BRAIN: HARNESSING THE POWER OF THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD EMOTION: Wendy Suzuki, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at New York University
THE IMPACT OF GRIEF AND LOSS ON THE BRAIN: Dorothy P. Holinger, PhD, author of “The Anatomy of Grief” and academic psychologist at Harvard University School of Medicine.
Event Planning & Publicity
Publicity Methods Used:
- Advertisements
- Calendar Listings (newspapers, radio, television)
- Emails
- Mailings
- Posters/Flyers
- Website
- Social Media
Which of These Publicity Methods Was The Most Successful?
Resources
What downloadable materials from the Foundation did you use for your events?
- Adults' Fact Sheets
What other downloadable materials would you like the Foundation to provide?
- New Fact Sheets
- New Lesson Plans
- Activities/Experiments
- New Puzzles/Games
Which BAW graphic materials did you use in publicizing your events?
- Brain Awareness Week Logos
Feedback & Keys to Success
How do you feel BAW participation benefited your organization and the local community?
In all four sessions, our participants were very engaged and brought their own wisdom, experiences, and insights to each discussion. The following are just two of the hundreds of comments we received via the session chats:
“Dr Ghilardi’s final comments were a perfect summary. Let’s help each other be our better selves, through art, movement, community.”
“Thank you for helping us understand the endless complexity of this emotion [grief]. The entire series was outstanding!”
Please share any suggestions or lessons learned that may help others plan future events:
Virtual and hybrid programming enables us to expand our reach both in terms of the number of participants and across a wider geographic spectrum. It also facilitates recording of the sessions so that those who may not be able to participate in real time can still reap the benefits of the wisdom imparted by the experts we invite to lead these sessions.
Of course, the use of technology requires a longer lead time and additional resources for planning, production, and execution. However, the benefits far outweigh the additional work required, as evidenced by the greatly expanded breadth of our reach since moving this project from an in-person only event for 200 or so participants in 2020, to what is now a global gathering that has quadrupled over the past two years.
