Psychological, behavioral, and educational services for children, families, and schools

Individual therapy is one-on-one work with a child or teen to build coping skills, promote resilience, address a specific life event, reduce anxiety, boost mood, improve friendships, and work towards any number of additional goals. Depending on the age of the client, play therapy, talk therapy, creative therapy, and other approaches may be used.

Parent involvement varies depending on the age and developmental level of the child and the goals of treatment. Parents of younger children can expect to be extensively involved. Parents of teens can expect their child to do more of the work independently.

Evaluation involves taking a comprehensive look at an individual’s strengths, weaknesses, and patterns of functioning through use of standardized assessments, interviews, observations, and collection of data from parents and/or teachers.

Psychoeducational evaluations can be helpful in diagnosing learning issues, gleaning recommendations for most appropriate treatment modalities, and providing suggestions for support at home and in school. Diagnostic evaluations can be helpful in determining whether a specific clinical challenge exists (e.g. ADHD), and what, if any, intervention may be warranted.

Parenting is challenging, whether children are developing typically or requiring support. Parents may seek consultation to discuss specific behaviors of concern, review behavior management strategies, receive support for parenting “sensitive” children, discuss how to broach sensitive topics with their children (e.g. adoption, divorce), and examine whether their child’s unique learning profile is a good match for his or her learning environment.

I also currently offer two parent-focused, time-limited interventions: Protective Sleep for Parents (PSP) and SPACE (see descriptions below).

School observation or consultation may be requested by a family for a specific child, as part of a larger behavior plan, or as part of a psychoeducational or diagnostic evaluation. Observations include a written report with recommendations.

Schools may also request observation of a whole classroom or other specific setting  in an effort to develop new strategies to support students’ behavior, academic engagement, or coping skills within the environment.

I am available to speak to and/or provide training for groups of parents, teachers, community members, and others. Please contact me to discuss your specific request and for scheduling and rate information.

SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. It is a parent-focused, time-limited (10-12 weeks) intervention that helps parents change their own behavior to respond more supportively to their anxious child and to reduce the accommodations they have been making to the child's symptoms.

Protective Sleep Program (PSP) is a two- to three-session program for parens who are about to welcome a newborn. Its goal is to preserve some amount of healthy sleep for new parents, which in turn increases bonding with the infant and protects parents' relationship with each other. PSP is best completed in the third trimester or approximately 8-10 weeks before the placement of the infant.