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Our job at ECS as educational consultants is to find the most appropriate therapeutic, academic, and residential placement for your child. Most families take a leap of faith in this unfamiliar process and uncharted territory by putting their trust in people they do not know. With our combined background and experience at ECS in mental health and education, we are in a special position to recommend the best possible program for your child based on his or her specific needs. By making our modus operandi explicit, we can help you, the parents or guardians, have the confidence that you are choosing the right course for your child.

Our Process

Our recommendation process is a deliberate one. We begin by identifying issues, needs, and criteria for a well thought out, evidence-based recommendation. Our inquiry process entails analyzing information we learn from psychological and educational evaluations, in-depth conversations with you and professionals who have worked with your child (not necessarily been successful but know your child), a review of school records, and, if geographically possible, meeting with you and your child.

100% of clients who answered an ECS survey tell us that we give a clear, concise, and informative presentation of our services throughout the process of working with families.

These many sources of information are used to weave together a well-rounded picture of your child’s cognitive, emotional and social makeup. Sometimes, to supplement what we know from these various sources, we recommend a short-term diagnostic program to assess more definitively what your child and family respond to therapeutically. We use this valuable information to identify the major issues you and your child deal with on a daily basis at home, at school and in social activities.

The first part of our process begins by asking questions in four areas of development to identify a child's major issues: personality, cognitive, emotional, and social.

Personality tells us how a person presents him/herself to the world, such as level of trust and openness, introversion and extroversion, general attitude and outlook on life, and approach to people and to meeting challenges in life.

Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, reasons, makes judgments, processes information, uses language and symbols, and performs in school.

Emotional well-being helps us understand how a person experiences his/her world through feelings, responds with emotions, and the ability to empathize.

Social life refers to how a person relates to one's family, friends, community, and institutions.

These four areas of development are intricately interwoven and do not operate in isolation. It is our job as consultants to sort through the complexity in order to give you a comprehensive portrayal of the major issues your child struggles with, the changes your child needs to make in order to thrive, and the kind of program that can meet these needs.

Your child's profile

Once we have identified and defined the nature of the major issues, we begin to formulate a profile of your child's needs. It is important to understand the difference between needs and wants. There are many things that all of us want that we don’t necessarily need. In fact, what we want may not be in our best interest to get our needs met. It is our job to identify core needs. Both parent and child may want programs to possess certain attributes or characteristics that may have little to do with what is necessary for healing or thriving. For example, parents may require their child “to be close to home” and use geographic location as a criterion for school choice. Oftentimes, schools/programs that are closer to home do not meet the child’s core needs.

To give you an idea of how we identify core needs, here are some of the questions we ask:

• What kind of structure does your child need?
• What kind of milieu or social environment fits your child best?
• What kind of therapy or counseling would benefit your family?
• What type of academic environment is your child most likely to thrive in?

Once we answer all of these questions, we look at what schools meet most of the criteria identified. We say most because there is not a “perfect” school/program that has everything, but we can get close to the ideal by sifting and sorting through the nuances of care, treatment, and milieu.

It is important that the initial process is deliberate and systematic. At a time when parents/guardians are making, perhaps the hardest decision of their lives for their children, it is reassuring to know that we at ECS do more than go with a hunch or an impression. We proceed through a series of steps so that choices are based on a carefully, well thought out process. A deliberate method puts us in a position to advise and guide parents through a very difficult, sometimes overwhelming, decision process. Our combined background and experience in mental health and education allow us to make informed recommendations for the best possible fit for your child and family.