How I Work As An Educational Consultant
Consultation services at Caring Cove have two main focal points. The first is helping parents navigate the special education process, understand their child’s academic needs, and advocate for appropriate accommodations in the classroom.
The second focus is providing school-wide training for staff and teachers to improve academic, behavioral, and social outcomes for students.
As a parent…
Are you having difficulties navigating the school system’s procedures and looking to safeguard your child’s emotional, social, and academic well-being? Do you struggle to understand the next steps involved in having your child evaluated by the Child Study Team? Perhaps your child has an Individualized Education Plan, but you aren’t sure they are receiving the services they need. Or it may simply be that you seek a professional who can help you advocate for your child’s needs.
As a school administrator…
Are you looking for a way to respond to the behavioral issues or special needs of some students while still balancing the needs of everyone else in the class? Are you an administrator who wants help identifying at-risk children or referral resources for teens with anxiety or depression? Perhaps you are looking to set up a school-wide bullying prevention and intervention system, but you don’t know where to start. Or you could be looking for in-service training to support your teachers and equip them with the tools necessary to manage their classrooms (e.g., behavioral modification strategies).
Whether you’re a parent trying to protect your child or a school administrator who wants to help your students and teachers, your goal is the same: to create an environment that allows children to thrive. At Caring Cove, we can give you the clarity, resources, and knowledge necessary to equip your child or your students with the resources they need to be successful.
Kids Have To Deal With Increasingly Difficult Challenges
Growing up is never easy, but kids today are confronted with a unique set of challenges that many parents or teachers never had to face when they were young. Shootings in schools and the community are unfortunately occurring more and more frequently. Social media bombards teenagers with false information and encoded messages from “friends,” creating a sense of hypervigilance or inadequacy surrounding social acceptance and appearance. Plus, we place an incredible amount of pressure on children from a very early age to be academically successful.
When you factor in bullying, navigating early relationships, and searching for a sense of identity, it’s understandable why adolescence, in particular, can be such a tumultuous stage. Moreover, if your child or your students are dealing with anxiety, depression, ADHD, or a documented behavioral problem—the four most common mental health challenges for children—the school years can be excruciating.*
If you are a teacher or school administrator, you’ve probably seen all of this play out in the classroom before—from behavioral issues and learning difficulties to bullying and at-risk youth. But mediating those kinds of situations can be difficult given the number of children in each classroom. And if you are a parent, you are most likely frequently asking yourself, “How do I best support my child?”
Both as a parent and an educator, it can feel very frustrating when you lack the knowledge or ability to help children in the way you want or are expected to. It is our goal at Caring Cove to provide you with the tools necessary to navigate the challenges you face as a parent or teacher so you are better able to protect and serve your children/students.
Closing The Gap Between Parents, Teachers, And Children:
How An Educational Consultant Can Help Your Child Succeed
One of the benefits of receiving school consultation as a parent is that you do not have to try and navigate the special education process alone. Instead of going from one evaluation to another or worrying because you don’t have the tools to help your child, at Caring Cove, we can help you determine specific next steps, attend I&RS and IEP meetings with you, and make recommendations that have been shown to work.
School consultations are usually short-term (1-5 sessions) during which parents seek answers to specific questions about their child’s educational, social or emotional needs. Parents receive concrete recommendations and education to help them navigate the special education process and/or address their child’s needs. School consultations can also include observations of your child’s behavior and academic functioning either at their school or at the clinic in order to tailor more specific recommendations.
At times, a Functional Behavior Assessment is completed to see if there are any discernible patterns behind your child’s behavior that may give us insight into how they function across different situations. Parents can also sign a release for us to speak with their child’s school and provide assistance. Additionally, consultants can attend I&RS and IEP meetings to help you advocate for the needs of your child and collaborate with their school to ensure that they have the tools necessary for success.
How A Consultant Can Educate School Staff To Serve Their Students
If you are an administrator, we can provide trainings for you and your staff to manage some of the stickier issues involved in the education process. For instance, we can provide teachers with tools that have been proven to significantly improve behavioral difficulties in students. We can also train educators on how to respond to bullying and provide child abuse education per New Jersey legal mandates.
At Caring Cove, the trainings offered are data-driven. We also take a hands-on approach to training and work one-on-one with teachers in real-time in order to ensure that techniques are generalizable to the classroom. Our goal is to join school administrators in creating an environment where teachers feel supported and confident so that they can help students flourish emotionally, academically, and behaviorally.
Let Me Help Equip Your Child Or Your Student For Success
If you would like to know more about school consultation services at Caring Cove and how they may be able to help you create an enhanced educational experience, we can help. Please call 973-370-9944 for a free 15-minute consultation to see how we can help ensure the academic and overall well-being of our future’s most valuable assets.