Consultation Services for Organizations That Serve Children with Special Needs
The range of students with challenging needs is immense; and the process for serving them can be daunting for families and those individuals and entities that serve these children. Students with learning and physical disabilities, emotional challenges and autism must be helped or their chances of quitting school, entering the juvenile system, or becoming adults unable to function effectively are extraordinarily high.
Who We Serve
Special Education Leadership provides comprehensive support for those institutions that serve and want to help these students:
Residential Treatment Centers
California Certified Non-public Schools
Private Schools
Public Juvenile Justice and Foster Care Agencies
Psychologists and Evaluation Clinics
Educational Consultants
Non-profit Associations Representing Children with Disabilities
Foundations That Look to Invest Wisely in Children
Navigating the Special Education System
The American special education system under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] is the one process for addressing the needs of these students and must be effectively navigated to give the students an opportunity for a functioning adulthood. The process ensuring each child receives an appropriate education is the same:
- Refer the child to the local school district and ensure the district responds.
- Obtain an appropriate assessment; we strongly recommend an independent evaluation by qualified professionals in the area of the child’s disability.
- Identify the educational and service needs of the child, and pursue these through the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process.
- Access the services and placement the child needs and if that is outside of the public school system, ensure they are funded, whether by school district, other public agency, insurance, private sources such as foundations or other private fund raising, or most likely a combination.
It is important to understand these vital steps in order for the children and the organizations that serve them to flourish. This is even more important as Covid-19 significantly impacts the educational world and the public budgets that fund appropriate programs/placements.
Organizational Strategy
A major goal of SEL is to help the organizations with whom we contract in strategic development to reach the organizations own goals and objectives for the families and children these organizations serve. SEL brings years of experience, judgement and wisdom – both legal and practical – to develop focused and effective strategies to navigate the many complex barriers preventing children from accessing an appropriate education. Such support can make all the difference in the world for these children as well as those professionals and organizations that support that child. The right kind of advocacy, particularly proactive, can reduce rather than increase costs in accessing services for these children.