Biographies

Edward R. Feil

Edward R. Feil graduated from Yale University in 1949 in visual arts and established Edward Feil Productions in 1952. He has an impressive track record in production of film and video. His films on gerontology and rehabilitation have been recognized internationally. Living for Yesterday, won the Silver Medallion at the Miami International Film Festival, 1978; 100 Years to Live won The Bronze Award at the Houston International Film Festival, 1981; Hillside, won the Golden Eagle in 1982; My First 100 Years, won an Emmy Award, National Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cleveland Chapter, and the John Muir Film Festival Top Aging Award, 1984. Where Life Still Means Living won an award from the Council for International Non-Theatrical Events (CINE). Cleveland Institute of Art won the CINE award in 1962 and was shown at the Venice Documentary Film Festival. Other awards for creative outstanding movies both in Industry and in Educational fields: Safety in a Chemical Laboratory, made for The Manufacturing Chemists' Inc. Association, won the 1962 National Safety Council¹s Award of Merit and was also selected for The American Film Festival.

Edward G. Feil

Starting in a runaway youth crisis center as foster care coordinator, he has worked with children, youth and families since 1987. He received his Ph.D. in School Psychology and Early Intervention for the University of Oregon in 1994. Dr. Feil is currently a Research Director at Edward Feil Productions, Research Scientist at Oregon Research Institute and an Assistant Professor/Research Associate in the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior within the College of Education at the University of Oregon. Dr. Feil has been Principal Investigator of three NIH supported projects (a) Computer-Assisted Observation of Parents and Children (R21 MH 63896) which evaluates an innovative remote computer mediated direct observation system; (b) Cross-Site Data Coordination for the Head Start Mental Health Research Consortium (263-MD-410830) which develops a cross-site dataset for the consortium; and (c) the Early Childhood Program in Promoting School Readiness (R21 HD43765-01) which evaluates the efficacy of a combined social skills (First Step to Success) and pre-literacy intervention (e.g. language development and knowledge of the alphabet) for Head Start children at high risk for school failure. He has been funded as Co-Investigator on 2 Internet based grants to develop interventions on-line: (a) diabetes self management from NIDDK (RO1 DK 51581) and (b) smoking cessation from NCI (RO1 CA 79946). As well, he has been Co-Investigator and Program Director of 2 educational-based grants (a) Early, Evidence-Based Intervention for Severe Behavior Problems: First Steps to Success Within School Settings (H324C040047) which evaluated the First Step intervention program in Albuquerque New Mexico and (b) A Cross Cultural Analysis of the Early Screening Project (97 JN FX 0022 ) which is a study with Head Start classrooms to ascertain the longitudinal accuracy and cross cultural appropriateness of the Early Screening Project (ESP) screening system. Dr. Feil, an experienced "early career" researcher, is a co-developer of the Early Screening Project and First Step to Success.

Naomi Feil

Naomi Feil, M.S., A.C.S.W., is the developer of Validation.

She was born in Munich in 1932, and grew up in the Montefiore Home for the Aged in Cleveland Ohio, where her father was the administrator and her mother, the head of the Social Service Department. After graduating with a Masters degree in Social Work from Columbia University in New York, she began working with the elderly. Between 1963 and 1980 Mrs. Feil developed Validation as a response to her dissatisfaction with traditional methods of working with the severely disoriented old-old people who were her clients. In 1982 she published her first book, Validation: The Feil Method, which was revised in 1992. Her second book, The Validation Breakthrough, was published in 1993, and updated and revised in 2002. Ms. Feil studied writing at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1958 to 1960. From 1958 to 1963, Ms. Feil studied theater at the Hubert Berghoff Studio in New New York. Ms. joined Feil Producttions as a script writer in 1963. Naomi Feil and her husband have made many films and videos about aging and Validation. Feil is the Executive Director of the Validation Training Institute and a popular speaker in North America and Europe. Since 1989 she has toured Europe 3 times a year offering workshops in Validation to participants in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, Belgium, Italy, Great Britain, and Austria. Her books have been translated into French, Dutch, German, Italian, Finnish, Danish, and Swedish.

Ken Feil

Ken Feil has been teaching in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College since 1995. He earned his Ph.D. in Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Dying for a Laugh: Disaster Movies and the Camp Imagination (Wesleyan University Press, 2005) and dozens of journal articles, conference papers, and reviews. Ken has also written (alone or in collaboration) numerous films, commercials, and Public Service Announcements. He is currently co-writing and co-editing the film The Validation Legacy as well as authoring a book on Hollywood comedies of the 1960s and 1970s.