Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Mon, Mar 29, 2010
Dad was failing rapidly and needed a new kidney. The world stopped. Nothing else mattered. We came together...
Enter team #1, a hospital whose philosophy and practice revolved around looking to our family's decision-making process: "Which of the three sons (all anatomical matches) would step up to be the donor?" "How would we manage the period leading up to the transplant?" "How would we handle the recovery period?" All good questions and perfectly rational... that is, if we were not in crisis and were thinking completely clearly.
Enter team #2, a different hospital team which anticipated that we would not be thinking clearly and advised us accordingly: "Based on our experience, here's what's going to happen..." "The following are things you probably have not thought of yet, but that you need to know, no matter how hard to hear." "Based on our assessment, here's who should be the donor and why." Big, big difference.
Why do I bring this up? It dawned on me the other day that this is exactly what prospective clients are weighing when they are in a bind with their struggling child. In crisis, people need conviction and experience since they cannot be expected to rationalize every step on their own.
I've been there. I'd like to think that those in my family are loving, sensitive, rational, intelligent, and problem-solving above all... but, you can throw that all out the window when a crisis takes hold (even when some of those family members are in crisis educational consulting themselves!).
For the families who reach out to us, they are doing so for good reason. Most have been directed by other professionals or former clients who have been there as well and know in hindsight from their own tribulations that they need that level of conviction and experience to make it through.
In case you're wondering, our family is doing well several years later. On most days, we even forget what we went through. Imagine that...
Posted by Hannah Cleveland on Mon, Feb 15, 2010
Educational consulting is not a science in the literal sense of the word. There are a myriad of factors to consider when placing a client; therefore the more tools we have, the better equipped we are to ensure that we provide families with the most viable options.
One such tool is the Goldberg Educational Placement Inventory (GEPI)TM. The GEPITM is a proprietary assessment tool developed by Adam Goldberg, M.Ed. in conjunction with Boston-area neuropsychologists and special education administrators for use by professionals consulting on school and special needs program placement.
This particular tool can be useful even before a family has engaged our services. The GEPITM results provide insight into the general types of programs which would benefit the student, for example: Public or Private? Traditional or Non-traditional? Day or Boarding? LD or Therapeutic? This basic information can be extremely useful in laying the groundwork for the direction of the initial conversation between family and consultant. In most cases this would allow them to start off on the same page and at least have a solid basis for discussion.
If you think the GEPITM could be of use to a student you know, click here. If you complete the form and return it to me I would be happy to score it and share the results with you.
Posted by Hannah Cleveland on Mon, Dec 28, 2009
As Intake Coordinator, I frequently find myself speaking to a parent with a child in crisis. Every child presents a unique case, but the descriptions I hear often include some combination of the following...defiant, dependent, anxious, depressed, angry, disengaged, struggling, at-risk. I am inundated with countless Dx/Rx profiles from A to Z.
In addition to describing our services and fees, I strive to give these families a sense of hope for a positive outcome. This is easy for me to say, but I recognize that the words may sound hollow to a parent whose angst may be complicated by feelings of guilt, hopelessness, and desperation. Although there are never guarantees when working with difficult issues and complex family dynamics, I want parents to understand that there are a myriad of opportunities for high-impact change.
Specialized schools and programs that once didn't exist to families in crisis are now staffed with some of the most dedicated and credentialed practitioners in the country. When our educational consulting team has had an opportunity to help identify and match complex needs with the appropriate expertise and setting, the outcomes have been beyond what I would have ever expected. In the end, it's all about finding the right fit and therefore getting it right the first time... and that is where the role of a proven educational consulting team comes into play.
We hear from parents of current and former clients, almost on a daily basis, who are ecstatic to see their son or daughter on the path to a healthy and happy future, something they never would have believed possible at one point in the past.
So folks, there is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
Click for more on our positive outcomes...
Posted by Leslie S. Goldberg, M.Ed., CEP on Sun, Aug 23, 2009
When parents call for help with a child, adolescent, or young adult they are often in crisis and we first and foremost need to determine if we are the right people to assist them. Do they need crisis intervention; do they need a therapeutic wilderness program; do they need a therapeutic boarding school or a residential treatment program; or do they need a young adult program? Do they need a medical facility? Do they need an intervention? Some families may just need to hear some local resources, wherever they are, if they cannot afford to place their child. Do they need some advocacy services to assist them with funding or IEP issues? Once we have tweaked out that kind of information and if they agree to engage our services, we do all of our due diligence and come up with a plan.
Sometimes the plan involves a two-step process with a short term program for a couple of months followed by a longer term school or therapeutic program. Parents are extremely eager and anxious to know all that they can and want to know the long term plan right at the beginning. More often than not, we cannot give them the long term plan until the shorter term program along with clinically sophisticated testing and the 24/7 observation, therapy, and assessment are well underway. Sometimes I really wish I had a crystal ball, but without the weekly calls and reports as well as the careful and thorough test interpretation, the view from that crystal ball may not even be accurate!
We acknowledge that this can be very difficult for parents. Therefore, we do everything we can to help them with this rationale. Although it would certainly be easier for consultants and a heck of a lot less work to come up with the two step process at the beginning, it is not always in the best interest of the child, adolescent, or young adult, and that to us at the Goldberg Center is the most important goal.
Let us know what you think...
Posted by Hannah Cleveland on Tue, Aug 04, 2009
While examining the anatomy of our educational consulting intake calls, I have noticed two disturbing trends in the therapeutic placement domain.
First off, the average age of the potential client is on the rise. We are hearing from an increasing number of families seeking help for kids who are 17 and older. Laws as they are, there is a very small window of opportunity to get struggling students the help they need. Parents are often referring to this as their last chance, yet it is the first time they have sought a therapeutic placement.
The other alarming educational consulting trend is an added layer of alcohol and substance abuse on top of the mental health issues we often see in our intakes... and it appears that hard drug use is becoming more of an issue.
What factors are contributing to these educational consulting trends? While the state of the economy is causing many people to hesitate, those who are approaching the age 18 threshold with children are driven to finally act.
Why the hard drugs in these dual-diagnosis cases? One can only surmise. On one hand, upwardly skewed ages could be yielding greater access to these tougher drugs. Perhaps tough economic times drive experimentation of the ‘street drugs.' Or maybe, once again, we're just seeing those cases that have culminated to a point beyond where they normally would in better economic times.
If you are a practicing professional, we would love to know if you are seeing similar trends, and if you have any thoughts on the matter...
Posted by Karen Plescia, M.S. on Mon, Jul 27, 2009
Ah, the lazy, hazy days of summer. Remember what it was like to look forward to summer as a kid? Three whole months! No school. No homework. Long hours of daylight. Lots of ice cream. My mother usually made sure to fill up a couple of weeks with day camps and rec programs so that my brother and I wouldn't drive her to the brink of insanity but these were carefree months.
Eventually, as a teenager, summer meant that I could work more hours to earn money that I would spend hanging out with friends at the mall or the movies or the local coffee shop. Not to pay bills; we didn't have cell phones then. If we had, I either wouldn't have been allowed to have one, or I'm sure my father would have introduced me to bill-paying as a teen. Even though I was "working", those three whole months of summer were still a vacation. They allowed me a break from the routine of getting up early, completing the compulsory number of hours in a school day, and committing several after-school hours each day to various school or community activities.
And so why am I surprised that I have to nag, beg, cajole and bargain with students to work on their college admissions essays over the summer? When I meet with students and parents each spring, to a person (students included), the number one stated objective, far and above all others, is "to be done with the college admissions essays and hopefully applications" before school resumes in September. The concept is great. The reality is that high school seniors-to-be want those three whole months to be as carefree as teenager can be in today's world.
But my job is to rain on their parade, be a party pooper, and stand-in for their parents as "nag" or "bad guy" on all things college-related. If I am successful at my job (which I am in most cases), students have, at the very least, completed the heavy lifting parts of applying to college before the first day of their senior year. The activities "resume" is done, the Common Application is 90% finished (with maybe just a few college supplements left to complete), and the major essay(s) might still need a tweak or two, but they're largely done. I try to make it as painless as possible. We tackle things in small pieces that usually require just a few hours' commitment each week through July and August. I don't hear many complaints, and those I do hear usually come from the students who procrastinate.
When September rolls around and my students go back to school, they realize how much further along they are in the application process than their peers. They don't experience the stress of trying to get essays written while studying for the SATs or completing the Common Application late at night when they're exhausted after a sports practice. That's when they realize that the minor intrusion on their three whole months off was well worth it.
It's mid-July, and I'm in "nag mode" right now. I won't breathe easy until next spring when all the admissions decisions have been received. Then I'll take one whole month before starting the cycle over with a new group. Ahhh, May!
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Tue, Jun 09, 2009
Some readers of this blog are familiar with EnCompass Education, our venture that brings educational consulting into companies as an employee benefit program. Very few, however, are aware that we have just launched its new web platform: www.encompasseducation.com, which is designed to both assist human resources with decision-making on the front-end and meet the varied education needs of corporate employees on the back-end.
While the back-end content management system is only available to our corporate clients' employees, the front end is accessible to all.
I am happy to report that our programming is highly utilized (substantially more than EAPs and other comparable work-life initiatives), highly praised, and is helping companies engage employees like never before.
If you have an interest, or even curiosity, in how the need to engage employees is changing the way companies invest in education, check out our new EnCompass Education digs and feel free to weigh in on the new work. life. learn. blog! as well.
As always, thanks for stopping in...
Posted by Leslie S. Goldberg, M.Ed., CEP on Fri, May 29, 2009
We have spoken about therapeutic wilderness programs and how effective the good ones can be, but why isn't that enough? What if a family can't financially swing both wilderness and aftercare? What if the child or young adult has conditions that preclude the referral to a short term outdoor program or even a short term diagnostic program that is not outdoors? What is the difference between a residential treatment program and a therapeutic boarding school? What about transition programs and "regular" boarding schools? Where do all of these fit in our world?
There is such confusion about the nomenclature because the licensing differs from state to state, but for our purposes here we will include small residential programs that are highly clinical as well as larger sub-acute facilities when describing a residential treatment center (RTC). RTCs offer similar care and therapy to what used to be lengthy psychiatric hospital stays years ago before managed care took those away. The respected RTCs of today are wonderfully nurturing, have psychiatrists working with the students on a regular basis (most on a consulting basis) and the emphasis is on individual, group, and family therapy although each has an accredited school as well. The way I differentiate these from the next level down (often called therapeutic boarding schools) is this overly simplistic way:
- RTC or similar programs typically have a 75% emphasis on therapy and 25% pm academics
- Therapeutic boarding schools (sometimes referred to as emotional growth schools) typically might have an equal emphasis on therapy (50%) and academics (50%)
- Transition or step-down programs may have 75% emphasis on academics and 25% on therapy
- Traditional or mainstream boarding schools who might be likely to consider students after a therapeutic setting of any kind would not have therapy as part of their program but may have therapists nearby in the town or consulting to the school.
But how do we know what kind of school or program our child needs? There are many ways of determining the needs of our kids. A really good complete neuropsychological or psychoeducational evaluation that includes projective and personality testing is one piece. Another would be the use of an instrument like our in-house Goldberg Educational Placement Inventory (GEPI) as well as speaking to the professionals who have worked with the adolescent or young adult, as well as a face-to-face meeting if appropriate. Often a short term intervention like wilderness offers amazing insight into the needs for the next step.
This is a very basic explanation of the "lay of the land" in the world of the therapeutic settings. Should you need more information please call and set up a phone call with one of us at the Goldberg Center. If you would like to share your perspective, please leave a comment...
Posted by Karen Plescia, M.S. on Fri, May 22, 2009
Having spent well over a third of my life (40%, to be exact) on college campuses, I am prone to sentimentality during two very distinct times of year: opening weekend and commencement. Given that I am no longer working or living on a college campus but do live in an area saturated with them and still work with college-bound students, these "distinct" times of year, for me, have morphed into several weeks in late August/Early September and mid-May.
‘Tis the season for college commencements. Leaders and celebrities grace stages all over the country to express their expectations, dreams, and concerns for newly-christened "adults" and to share with them sage advice about how to be a better person, improve the world, or otherwise become "successful."
I am not in a position to have any expectations or dreams for students leaving college today. I certainly have plenty of concerns for them, though. Forget about "sage advice" as they venture from the warm womb of academia into the cold world. I opted to retreat back into that womb for a dozen more years after my own graduation.
I feel much more equipped to counsel (as I do) college-bound students who are getting ready to graduate from high school. And so here is my advice to them:
As much as you want to - and should - enjoy this summer following your senior year of high school spend some of it preparing yourself for the transition to college. Yes, it is a transition, and if you want to get through it with minimal pain you will need to put in some effort on the front end. Based on my experience, that means a few things, but most importantly, it means understanding how to organize yourself and manage your time. This looks like something different for every person. For me, as an undergraduate, it meant a planner (a good old fashioned week-view calendar) and colored pens. For today's high school graduates, it probably involves a mobile electronic device and typing with thumbs, but the intent is the same.
As a college administrator I was always most concerned about the students who walked into my office without a pen and piece of paper or without some way of keeping track of their schedules. Conversations with these advisees sounded something like this:
Me: "When is that assignment due?"
Student: "Hang on while I try to find my syllabus in this mess of a backpack and then locate that exact assignment on the schedule (because I haven't actually looked at the syllabus since it was handed to me), and then.....oops....it was due yesterday."
You get the point.
Practice scheduling your time, keeping appointments, making "to do" lists, etc. this summer. I know that sounds like a drag in the summer, but it doesn't have to be. Put into your calendar (phone/iPod/whatever) your mani's and pedi's, your beach time, pick-up games, rounds of golf. If you have a job, put your work hours in the calendar each week. Now you can schedule your fun around them. Make a "to do" list of things you need to buy for your dorm room or of people you want to be sure to see before you head off to school. You'll feel so good when you get to cross off or delete things as you accomplish them!
This is just practice; it doesn't have to be "serious" stuff. Just get in the habit of thinking about what you need - or want - to do and when it needs to be done. And make it part of your morning routine to look at your calendar or "to do" list every day. Inputting it or writing it down won't help if you never look at it again.
The best advice that I received as a high school senior actually came from a professor at the university I ended up attending. He told the audience of my peers (I'm paraphrasing after the first sentence), "Treat college like a 9-to-5 job. Whether you need to be at class or not, you're up and ready to work at 9AM. You don't go back to your room to watch TV or sleep between classes because you're still ‘at work'. Go to the library and study. At 5:00 you can close your books, go to dinner, and enjoy the rest of your evening. If you do this, if you truly work diligently from 9 to 5 every Monday through Friday, you will not fall behind; you will not have to do tons of reading at night." He was talking about managing our time, setting priorities. I didn't know that then, but I sure wish I had listened to him.
Please share your insights...
Posted by Nina Flood, M.B.A. on Mon, May 18, 2009
The Answer Is: $60/hour. What is the question?
What is the hourly rate of classroom instruction based on the $52k price tag of attendance at Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
Though not likely to be heard on the real TV show "Jeopardy", it is the kind of unforgettable lesson that Daniel Barkowitz, MIT's Director of Financial Aid, (and professor of a seminar on personal finance) teaches. Daniel has always had a unique ability to take complex financial aid and financing concepts and make them into something more widely accessible. Because of the economic downturn and resulting higher stress put on college students and their families, I recently met with Daniel to get his perspective on what is needed now.
He offered up with two "Stress Less" solutions (not stressless, but stress reducing) that we are considering here at The Goldberg Center:
1. One of the problems needing a solution is the lack of timely, accurate information available to families. Because most financial aid offices are completely swamped with calls and emails from January through May, (for first years) and May through August, (for the continuing students), many families turn to each other. In person or online, they often inadvertently receive or share misinformation. We are contemplating an online forum that would enable a family to pose a question, get the real regulatory language answer, and then allow its discussion. Most importantly, this forum would be monitored by professionals within the industry to assure that only accurate information remained posted.
2. Another problem is the lack of holistic planning that goes into a family's game plan. There seems to be two schools of thought: either you make financing as painful as possible by paying more than you can afford in an effort to minimize financing costs or remain in denial by deferring payments with expensive financing vehicles. The neglect of a middle ground, however, leads to both shattered dreams and finances. There is a need for a tool that enables a family to see the long and short term benefits of, say, putting half of the balance in a payment plan and assuming a loan for the remainder. The tool we envision would also provide the total and immediate costs of the options for a minimum of four years of the employed strategy.
Which of these two solutions do you feel would be more valuable and merit higher priority for us? Let us know in your comments to this post - thanks in advance!