Our Procedure

FamilyLight ^sm :Successor to "Bridge to Understanding ^sm"
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The standard goal at FamilyLight with all clients is to help that client family develop a strategic plan to address the problem that brought them to us.  Keep in mind that when we say "strategic plan" it does not mean that you should expect an elaborate formal document.. It does mean that we try to help every family develop a strategy to resolve (in most cases) the problem that brought them to us. Where resolution is not realistic, it is our purpose to help the family determine what is possible, and then to maximize their impact on that problem within their means.

Keep in mind that most (not all) educational consultants think of a "school search" as their paradigm and understand that as their job.  That is very different in principle from developing a strategy to solve a problem.  It may be very different in practice, depending upon the specific situation. At FamilyLight^sm we include school search in our range of services (when applicable) and do that as well or better than the others. But that is only a part of what we do.

The paragraphs that follow, including the links associated, describe our service in detail. We offer this as a package for a single fee. We are often approached about providing a part of the service for part of the usual fee. We decline those requests.  We have attempted to work with families without applying the entire package, and have never been satisfied with the results.

When FamilyLight^sm begins with a new client, we begin with a Record Review. We ask you to provide us with copies of all educational and clinical records.  We also ask you to prepare a short biography for us. For more detail, please follow the link in this paragraph.

After we have an opportunity to review the records, we usually schedule a Home Visit.  Our consultant  will spend the better part of the day with the client -- usually the young person and his parents, usually in their home.  If this is an older person, what we do varies with the situation;  please inquire.    If the person is already in a residential facility -- say boarding school, wilderness program or hospital -- the visit can take place at that location.  For more detail, please follow the Home Visit link in this paragraph.  As of February 2013, we are experimenting with  conducting home visits via Skype.   Frankly, we stll prefer meeting face to face but are open to testing the Skype option.   

Following the Home Visit, we are prepared to offer coaching at home or refer to residential school or treatment or both, as might be needed.  Our service package involves six months of availability to our client families. When families hear this, it often leads to a concern that we might plan to take six months before offering specific referrals. Not to worry. Normally referral takes place very soon following a home visit if referral occurs at all.   However, we don't really need to quit altogether at the end of six months.  We always welcome updates and contacts from former clients and will respond to occasional questions indefinitely.   We want to monitor any placement we initiate for as long as the person remains in that placement.    However, we do ask for a renewal free from clients who continue to need frequent and moderately intense support.     For more detail, click here.

If your family is in need of parent coaching, we will help you work out a family contract if appropriate and guide you through difficult situations. For more detail, click here.

 In all cases, we remain available for follow-up throughout the service agreement period. If your son or daughter is in residential placement, usually that school or program will remain in contact with us for the duration of that placement, so our information is at the ready if we need to become involved again. 

We always welcome hearing from you about your son or daughter. Service agreements expire. Our concern for your son or daughter does not.

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Disclaimer: No  program review, no matter how positive, is a blanket endorsement. No criticism is a blanket condemnation.  When we express our level of confidence in a school or program, that is our subjective opinion with which others might reasonably disagree.  When we assert something as fact, we have done our best to be accurate, but we cannot guarantee that all of our information is accurate and up to date. When we address compliance with our guidelines, you need to remember that these are only OUR guidelines -- not guidelines from an official source.  We have also set the bar very high, and do not expect any school or program to be in total compliance.  It is not appropriate to draw a conclusion of impropriety (or even failure to live up to conventional wisdom) from our lack of confidence in a school or program or from less than perfect conformity to our guidelines.  Some will say we expect too much. Readers are responsible for verifying accuracy of information supplied here prior to acting upon it. We are not responsible for inaccuracies.

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