ASCENT COGNITIVE EDUCATION CENTER
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : k***l@a**********r.us
Mission Statement
Helping families living with chronic conditions improve brain health and thrive.
About This Cause
Climbing the Rocky Mountains is a challenging adventure full of peaceful sounds, beautiful moments with family and friends, and the feeling that you could conquer the world once you reach the top. However, it can also be a scary, cold, lonely, and even life-threatening journey; especially, if you go it alone and run into unexpected weather or unwanted friends. At Ascent Cognitive Education Center, we are helping Colorado families conquer a different kind of mountain. This mountain is one they have no choice, but to climb. These families are facing the mountains they must conquer to manage issues regarding brain health. We help these families conquer these mountains of the mind through our unique combination of scientifically proven programs. Our mission is to help these families improve brain health and learn to thrive instead of just survive. Founded in March of 2021, Ascent Cognitive Education Center was founded with the general mission of bringing the power of three world-renowned programs to the Rocky Mountain region, to help families dealing with chronic conditions learn to thrive instead of just survive. The Need We Fill As of the 2020 census for Colorado, there are now nearly 5.8 million people living in Colorado, and of those 5.8 million people, over 1 in 5 currently has or is living with someone who has a chronic condition that will affect brain performance, mental health, personal sense of self, or all three. In addition, often having a problem in one of these areas will cause a problem with the other two. These chronic conditions often create a spiral into despair for the whole family, because the situation is ongoing and there is no end in sight. At the Ascent Cognitive Education Center, although we cannot guarantee that we can fix everything, we can in nearly every case improve functioning, increase hope, and help families build a more positive future than they thought was possible. To give one specific example, a client named Alex, suffers from the effects of cerebral palsy. He is legally blind, has one leg shorter than the other, and just had surgery for severe scoliosis. All these things present their own challenges, but the issue the family struggled with most was his explosive temper! He would claw your face off, pull your hair out, and nearly throw himself out of your hands and onto the floor in a fit of rage. As an adult, Alex was suffering from angry outbursts anywhere from five times a week, up to three times in one day. As a result, the entire family was anxious, depressed, angry, and hopeless about the future. Ascent took on the case, even as we were still forming as a nonprofit in early 2020. In short, we were able to help Alex’s brain function better, provide strategies and skills for when he begins losing his temper, and we are currently continuing to help him with other impulsivity issues. A year later, Alex still has his temper under control and the whole family has a much better quality of life. In addition, our programs have allowed Alex to become a more independent and productive member of society. Most importantly, he and his family have more hope and excitement for what the future holds for all of them. Our programs are designed to help clients ages 3-103. How do we create results like this? Ascent Cognitive Education Center is the only one of its kind in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States and is only one of a handful of centers that provide similar programing across the whole country. The power of our program comes from using three world renowned, scientifically proven programs and techniques together. These programs are: Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment Program: This program provides the foundation of everything we do at Ascent Cognitive Education Center. It is a cognitive development system that combines paper and pencil-based brain development programs with the support of a licensed mediator to maximize brain function. It has 70 years of research behind it in both educational and clinical settings. One Italian study, in 2015, demonstrated the powerful impact the program has on clients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. During the study, half of the participants received a program called cognitive remediation therapy, and the other half received training with Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment. The Feuerstein group had a 28% drop in severity of symptoms by the end of participating in the program, and by 60 days later had continued to improve to a 46% drop in the severity of symptoms. Participants were not followed more that 2 months after the study. Smeraldi, C., Mazza, G., & Ricci, L. (2015). FEUERSTEIN INSTRUMENTAL ENRICHMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER: A PRELIMINARY STUDY. Cognitivismo Clínico, 12(2). https://www.apc.it/wpcontent/uploads/2013/03/04Smeraldi15-2P.pdf Positive Education Programs: Positive Education is an extension of the Positive Psychology discipline which is focused on teaching Positive Psychology tools, techniques, and strategies to improve client’s life experience and mental health. The best example of the impact of this program is Geelong Grammar School (k-12) in Australia. They adopted and began using the Positive Education Program in 2008. Starting just 3 years after its implementation until today, Geelong Grammar School has consistently reported having significantly higher rates of well-being among both students and staff than the national average. In some cases, when students were introduced to the program in grades 6-8, or younger, they reported experiencing little to no depression and anxiety in their later teen years, which is opposite of the national trends. Norrish, J. (2015). Positive education: The Geelong Grammar School journey. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198702580.001.0001 Aspects of Identity Thrive Program: It has been said that, “A mind cannot be independent of culture (Lev Vygotsky, circa 1933)”, and since we get most of our identity from what we think, feel, and achieve, neither can a person, if they want fully experience the best in life. Ascent Cognitive Education Center’s Aspects of Identity Thrive program combines the power of Lev Vygotsky’s Psychological tools, with cultural genealogy, to help clients create a greater sense of just who they are, which creates more stability in health and happiness over time. Increasing our Impact in 2022- We would love your support! The out-of-pocket costs for the families we serve is already staggering. Some examples of these annual and lifetime costs, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are: Alzheimer’s: $11,600 annual/$381,0000 lifetime Autism: $25,000 annually (cost and lost income), 2,400,000- 3,200, 000 lifetime Cerebral Palsy: $45,000 annual/ $1, 014,000 lifetime PTSD $11,000-$18,800 annually Traumatic Brain Injury $600,000- $1, 800,000 lifetime cost Currently, we are funded through individual donations, charging our clients and customers for our services and products, and some corporate nonprofit support programs like Amazon Smile and King Soopers Community Rewards. In 2022, we would like to Increase our funding through donations of various kinds so that we can decrease the financial burden for our families. Conclusion: We want every family to see a mountain as a challenging adventure, not something unconquerable and life-threatening. Ascent’s goal is to create a community where no family feels like they must do things alone. Each individual and family should have the opportunity to thrive not just survive! Please consider joining our support team today, we would be honored to have you accompany us on this journey.