About $1 billion is spent each year on scientific research across the country, but how much reaches families in a meaningful way? The information is compiled into reports, published in journals, but not brought into the community. Forging connections between science and community is the uncommon mission of the UCLA Family Commons in Santa Monica.
The enticing storefront facility on Second Street focuses on four main areas: community, family, parent and child. They offer yoga and martial arts classes and craft workshops. But they also host classes in areas such as “mindful awareness,” parenting toddlers, helping with homework and healthy eating. They even offer custom Family Wellness Checkups to help you gauge how your family is doing and set a plan for addressing your parenting priorities.
“We feel that you can deliver a lot of the science in ways that do not involve sitting behind a desk,” explains Diane Flannery, Ph.D., director and co-founder of the facility. And there is plenty of science being delivered here. When they get inquiries from clients, Flannery and colleagues can even call on experts from UCLA to help them compile data on all sides of the issue at hand – be that helping kids sleep, parenting sons, or coping with ADHD without medication.
The cozy little space helps ensure that all this expertise is delivered in a personal and accessible fashion. During a tour Monday, Flannery showed of comfy, round rooms where families and experts sit together around tables and the walls can all be written on with dry-erase markers. Active classes like yoga and martial arts take place in an airy room with windows and mirrors – and these offer their own community connections. A family taking a yoga class for toddlers might also happen upon a class about parenting toddlers, for example. Or instructors might notice a behavior problem in a child taking a martial arts class, discuss that with the parents and offer resources to help them cope.
The shopping is good here, too, with a plethora of books and other items for parents and kids on a host of topics. Not into dull, dry parenting texts? No worries. Flannery and staff personally review all the books they sell and carry only those with true family-friendly appeal. They can even point out the most pertinent sections for parents with little time on their hands and a particular problem to solve.
Open since December, Flannery says the Commons is now seeing about 25 walk-ins per day. They charge for classes and other services, but do sometimes offer sliding scales for families who need them.
The facility also reaches out virtually, with a Web site offering information and tools – including a tool for measuring how you spend your time (read about that on Carolyn Graham’s “I Don’t Have Time For This” blog), and a barometer of sorts for the mood of the community. Just set the bar to answer the question “How are you feeling today?” and you’ll add your color to the lanterns hanging in front of the Commons. With such a great resource in the area, there are sure to be a lot more good feelings to go around.
A panel of immunization experts voted yesterday that the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should recommend flu shots for everyone 
Most folks have heard, by this point, that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has called for a number of measures to help keep young children from choking on food. Their recommendations include warning labels on foods that pose a high choking risk (hot dogs, grapes, carrots, gumballs – or just about anything else that’s small and round or can be bitten into small, round pieces), recalls of products that pose a big choking hazard, and even the redesign of the good-ole American hot dog.
If you or your child use Serevent, Foradil, Advair or Symbicort, you’ll want to know about some new safety advice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These medications, prescribed to help fight symptoms of asthma, should be used as little as possible because their use has been linked to worsening of asthma symptoms, hospitalizations, and even some deaths, the FDA announced yesterday.
Think “wine charm” for your to-go coffee or your child’s plastic tumbler. This product fits in perfectly with my likes and dislikes. I like to personalize stuff, and hate sharing my drinks and wasting paper products. With Drinkmarx ($9.95 for four, 
Each set comes with Drinkmarx bands in four colors, plus two sheets with 120 decals – including letters to spell your name, and cool graphics for a range of interests (even one for yoga!). They slide easily over cups of various sizes, and have non-slip rubber backing to keep them in place until you’re ready to take them off. Great for multi-cup office meetings, or a fun party favor.
Target stores today pulled Valentine’s Day “Message Bears” from their shelves. The bears hold inflated vinyl letters that are tainted with lead –more than eight times the federal limit for products intended for kids 12 and younger. The lead was detected by testers at the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the industrial use of toxic chemicals, as part of their annual testing of Valentine’s Day products. The organization informed California Attorney General Jerry Brown about the lead-containing bears, and he sent a letter to the retail chain asking them to remove them from the shelves and accept customers’ returns of the products. If you have one of these bears, take it back to the store and insist on a refund.
