Learn More

Additional Consulting Services

In addition to recommending schools and programs, ECS offers supplementary services that support our core mission of helping families seeking change:

• Advice and Guidance provides help for families with children at home to deal effectively with schools, professionals, parent conflict and struggling children.
• Intensive Early Care™, a set of early intervention, in-home services designed to prevent an out-of-home, therapeutic placement.
• Intensive Aftercare™ encompasses services designed to help clients transition to home after out-of-home placements.
• Psychological Testing provides outstanding, timely psychological assessments.
  

Advice and Guidance

With our collective backgrounds in education, educational and psychological testing, and individual and family therapy, we are able to provide parents and children with advice and guidance as they navigate complex interactions among schools, professional services and families. We help families interpret test results, refer them to outstanding legal and psychological professionals, write letters to school officials and to the courts, facilitate parents in resolving conflicts, assist children in understanding the reasons for their difficulties, help parents deal with conflicting professional advice, and advise parents on school discipline problems. This advice and guidance is offered on an hourly basis or in six-month contracts.

:: Top of Page

Intensive Early Care™

Most families come to us with a history of trying to provide treatment and education using a variety of local resources. Often, despite everyone’s best efforts, the existing patterns of maladaptive behavior do not change significantly. However, with additional services and a more coordinated and integrated effort, an extended and expensive out-of-home, therapeutic placement can be prevented. For these families we now offer our Intensive Early Care™ (IEC), an in-home treatment and assessment program.
In such cases, we provide options that could include an in-home family workshop conducted by an IEC family specialist (a specially-trained, licensed family therapist), 24/7 access to the family specialist, regular parent coaching sessions, a teen/young adult and parenting library, a drug testing kit, and parenting webinars. The purpose of the workshop is to jump-start the IEC process by helping the family create a customized action plan, improving specific communication and parenting/relationship skills, and teaching family members how best to utilize their support network during their IEC program and beyond.

The centerpiece of the IEC program is the formation of a Home Team, consisting of parents, mental health professionals, educators, family friends, extended family members, and positive peers. The use of a special web portal, known as The Family Bridge, allows the members of the Home Team to communicate and to coordinate their efforts on behalf of the child.
In addition to these components, ECS consultants oversee the entire IEC process, provide regular check-ins with both parents and local professionals, and prepare a set of post-IEC recommendations, including level and types of services needed.
When the situation at home is too chaotic to begin the home portion of the IEC immediately, we offer an augmented form of IEC, in which the teen can attend a specially-designed, therapeutic wilderness program for 3 weeks with the intention that s/he will return home afterward to begin the in-home portion of IEC. While the teen is away doing intensive work, the family can organize their Intensive Early Care™ plan in anticipation of the teen’s return.

:: Top of Page

Intensive Aftercare™

When children return home from an out-of-home placement, they need to reintegrate with the family, apply newly learned skills to complex situations, and take the next steps in life. A family’s response in the immediate days, weeks and months following the return home is fundamental to a successful, long-term outcome. Intensive Aftercare™ provides the therapeutic elements necessary for long-term success after discharge and deals specifically with the causes of behavioral regression at home. Intensive Aftercare™ is customized and draws on the same services listed above for our Intensive Early Care™. The journey from intervention, to treatment, and finally to the transition home can be both overwhelming and extremely rewarding. Our goal at ECS is to guide, support and advocate for families throughout this process.

:: Top of Page

Psychological Assessment

The difficulty in obtaining a timely, comprehensive, highly competent assessment of a child has been frequently mentioned by both parents and professionals. In response to this need, ECS offers psychological and educational testing services tailored to the needs of an individual child. These services can be provided by our own licensed psychologist in our offices, or at locations near the client. These services are of the highest possible quality, with several characteristics not typically found in other testing services:

1. Professional consultation. Before an assessment report is finalized, it is reviewed by another psychologist with specific expertise in the special needs of the child. We have special expertise in learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, adoption/attachment issues, substance abuse issues, family systems, trauma, mood disorders, and personality disorders.
2. Timely response. Typically we can do an assessment within two weeks and can have the full report within two weeks after the testing.
3. Strength-based approach. The assessment develops a comprehensive and coherent picture of the child, both the child’s strengths and his/her deficits.
4. Parent/Family conference. A full explanation of the report is provided to both the parents the child in a family conference.
5. School conference. The assessment is explained to appropriate school staff, emphasizing how the school can better accommodate the child’s unique needs.

:: Top of Page

 

For more information about any of these services, contact us by calling 607.273.5400 (Eastern office) or 801.486.4743 (Western office) or by e-mail.