What is an Educational Consultant?
Compassionate, Ethical & Professional Experts
An educational / therapeutic consultant is an independent consultant who helps parents and students with educational planning.
Educational consultants may be generalists, though most tend to specialize with particular kinds of students, or students with particular kinds of needs.
Families considering hiring an educational consultant need to carefully assess the qualifications and experience of individual consultants. Ask for references from families that the consultant has worked with previously. The family also needs to ask about the consultant's commitment to professional ethics and standards.
Consultants need to be clear about their fees, counseling / consulting process, and expectations at the beginning of the relationship.
Everyone in the family, including the student, needs to feel comfortable working with the consultant, and the consultant's approach to how they assist. Most professional and ethical consultants enjoy working with young people and their parents, and get satisfaction from helping students reach their goals. Those who are ethical and professional pledge not to accept remuneration from any institution when program or school admissions are involved, to ensure that clients receive objective, as well as impartial, counsel.
Dore Frances has a main interest and expertise in research herself and she stays on top of the current research that is being released regarding attachment disorders, new clinical trials being released, old behavior modification methods that no longer work with most of today's 21st Century children, current academic research, health research, industry research, new laws affecting children and their families, technology and its affect on children, and just about anything that may relate to what programs and schools are offering. Research is essential. Staying abreast of best practices in this industry requires frequent attendance at many specialty conferences.
Associations and Membership
Trusted professionals who assist students and their families with clinical and educational decision-making are always part of one, if not several associations. Professional educational / therapeutic consultants have been involved in some kind of highly specialized education and / or training. In order to keep their areas of expertise up-to-date, they frequently travel to assess and visit many different types of programs and schools all across the nation.
Dore Frances is a member of the American Bar Association as an Advocate, is a member of COPAA (Council of Parent Attorney and Advocates), NAPCSE (National Association of Parents with Children in Special Education) and is a member of ATSA (Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers). All of these organizations set the highest standards for ethics, expertise, and excellence. Furthermore, Dore specializes in crisis situations, such as emotional and behavioral difficulties, juvenile legal issues, and crisis intervention efforts.
Our small personal collaborative team of professionals travel between 100 and 130 days per year, each, to interact with many different types of programs and schools, both residential and wilderness, in a way that can only be achieved with a face-to-face, on-site or in-field visit.
We maintain extensive up-to-date data bases of hospitals, programs and schools throughout the United States.
Contacts and networks are developed with key people such as administrators, admission directors, counselors, directors, financial consultants, health professionals, lawyers, owners, psychologists, school personnel, and staff at research institutions.
These valuable resources are used to help determine best fit clinical, educational, mental health and/or therapeutic options and interventions for your child or young adult.
