About SeeMore’s Playhouse™

SeeMore’s Playhouse, a national award-winning first-of-its-kind preschool television series which engages and entertains children while utilizing a unique blend of loveable characters, animation, live action and infectious sing-along music to teach the basics of Safety, Health and Wellness. SeeMore’s Playhouse, stars “SeeMore the Safety Seal” and airs on PBS Stations nationwide.

S4K’s Mission: Children’s Safety and Wellness

S4K Media LLC is the first integrated, global multimedia brand whose primary focus is to promote the safety and wellness of children through quality entertainment and products.

The country—and the World—is more focused on children’s safety than ever before. With crises in children’s health and preventable accidents receiving more and more attention, the time is right for a company like S4K to uniquely cater to these growing concerns. Just as Sesame Street seized upon a surge in national concern for children’s literacy and education—when it ascended to the stage of children’s education nearly three decades ago—S4K is uniquely poised today to address and help solve the growing national concern by parents and educators on the issues of children’s safety and wellness.

It is estimated that 90% of all children’s accidental deaths and injuries can be avoided with proper education and supervision—which is why addressing the current state of American children’s health and safety is more important than ever: Some 30 million children pay visits to emergency facilities and emergency rooms in the United State every year. Equally troubling are statistics on the current state of American children’s weight, with 10-15% of children and adolescents overweight. S4K is developing entertaining content for children that provides vital safety information for both parents and children alike.

S4K’s two time Emmy Award winning series, SeeMore’s Playhouse™, was designed to help children under seven learn and practice critical safety concepts while enjoying laugh-out loud fun.

Expert Bio's:

Andrew Weil, M.D.

Dr. Weil is a world-renowned leader and pioneer in the field of integrative medicine and is an internationally recognized expert in health and wellness. When S4K welcomed Dr. Andrew Weil to its advisory board this fall, he inspired the guest puppet Dr. Worthwhile in Season One. Dr. Weil’s character will be a periodic guest on the show, providing insight on nutrition and health in upcoming episodes.

Dr. Weil is director of the Program in Integrative Medicine of the College of Medicine, University of Arizona, where he also holds the Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair in Integrative Rheumatology and is clinical professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health. The program is the leading effort in the world to develop a comprehensive curriculum in integrative medicine.

Dr. Weil is the author of many scientific and popular articles and of ten books, including The Natural Mind, Health and Healing, Natural Health, Natural Medicine, and the international bestsellers, Spontaneous Healing and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health. His latest book, Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being was published in October 2005. Dr. Weil received an A.B. degree in biology (botany) from Harvard in 1964 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1968.

Alan M. Langlieb, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A

A full-time faculty member of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he serves as director of Workplace Psychiatry, Dr. Langlieb has broad experience in increasing public awareness of important health issues, especially through the media. He worked with Lyrick Studios (now HIT Entertainment) to create Barney Safety, a video for children, and an accompanying parents’ guide on injury prevention. He also co-created Following ER, a nationally syndicated television news segment, which featured health topics, covered on NBC’s hit TV series ER.

He has expertise in preventive medicine and psychiatry, and lectures widely on topics related to children’s health, injury prevention, and helping individuals improve their well being and productivity. He continues to work with entertainment and media groups on a variety of topics, including, most recently, the mental health effects of terrorism. He is committed to creating strategic partnerships between academia and business to improve the health and well being of children and adults. He is, most recently, the editor of Mental Health and Productivity in the Workplace (if a book, need publisher/year).

Carl Baum, M.D.

Dr. Carl Baum is associate professor of Pediatrics, Clinician-Educator Track, Department of Pediatrics – Yale University School of Medicine and director of Medical Toxicology at the Center for Children’s Environmental Toxicology at the Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. Dr. Baum has been honored by the U.S. Enironmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a recipient of the first annual Children’s Enironmental Health Award. In addition, he is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention and sits on the American Board of Pediatrics.

David Markenson, M.D. FAAP, EMT-P

Dr. David Markenson is deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and a recognized expert in the field of pediatric and pre-hospital disaster preparedness. He is an assistant professor of Pediatrics and an assistant professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University. Dr. Markenson is the Chief of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester County Medical Center and is also a senior research scientist at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. A board-certified pediatrician with fellowship training in both Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Preparedness, Dr. Markenson holds leadership positions at the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of EMS Physicians, and the American Red Cross.

As an advisor to the American Red Cross, he chairs the American Red Cross Advisory Council on First Aid and Safety. In his leadership role, Dr. Markenson guided the Red Cross in developing the 2005 First Aid Guidelines and the American Red Cross 2005 Guidelines for Emergency Care and Education. The new guidelines are the basis for health and safety training for 11 million people in the country each year. In 2003, Dr. Markenson led the National Consensus Conference on Pediatric Preparedness for Disaster and Terrorism.

Kristin E. Harkin, M.D., FACEP

Dr. Harkin is a full-time attending physician at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and core faculty of the emergency medicine residency program at Columbia and Cornell. She is an assistant professor of Cornell University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Formerly on the faculty of Harvard University, she is board certified in emergency medicine and a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Harkin graduated Magna Cum Laude from Fordham University, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and attended the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She has received numerous awards in emergency medicine, including the national Robert J. Doherty Teaching Fellowship. In addition, Dr. Harkin has authored three texts in emergency medicine, including Emergency Medicine: The Medical Student Survival Guide, as well as peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and newsletters.

Dr. Harkin has served as the national president of the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association, the Board of Trustees of the Emergency Medicine Foundation, and the Board of Directors of the New York Chapter of ACEP. She is a National Education Representative for Accreditation Oversight and a national spokeswoman for ACEP.

Sample Safety Topics

Nourish and Flourish with Dr. Weil
Play it safe by teaching your children healthy eating habits. Feeding our families healthfully is no small feat. There are more choices to make at the grocery store than ever before, and our...

Poison Safety
All children, especially when they are very young, put things in their mouths as part of learning and exploring their world. However, if they put something poisonous in their mouths, it can be...

Sun Safety
We love sunny days and wish they would never end. However, a long day of unprotected sun exposure can lead to severe sunburn. Sun exposure puts people at risk for skin cancer and premature aging...

Indoor Safety
Childhood injuries and deaths in the home number around two and a half million a year. Electricity, stoves, stairs, knives, sharp corners are hazardous and dangerous. Some families store guns...