Educational Advocacy & Consulting
AdvocacySD
Launching Students Towards Success
Educational Consulting Services
What Is an Educational Consultant (EC)?
An Educational Consultant, or EC, is a trained professional who helps locate and facilitate admission to a residential placement. The EC personally tours therapeutic programs, meeting with staff and getting first-hand experience with each program to ensure her recommendations are the best for each student.
How Do I Know My Student Needs Therapeutic Placement?
If your student is experiencing significant mental health challenges and does not seem to be improving despite therapy, intensive outpatient treatment or hospitalizations, your student may need more intensive services through a therapeutic or residential program placement.
What Types of Programs Are Available?
Wilderness: Students and young adults participate in short-term individual and group therapy in a wilderness setting. It can be a stand-alone placement, or a diagnostic placement to determine next steps.
Residential Treatment Centers (RTC): RTCs are longer-term live-in intensive treatment programs or residential placements. They provide a high level of therapeutic supports and are the most clinically intense option on the spectrum of programming.
Therapeutic Boarding Schools (TBS): A TBS is a live-in therapeutic program of medium duration that provides therapeutic supports at a less intensive level than a RTC. It is often used as a step-down placement from residential, or the next step after a wilderness program.
Why Do I Need an EC? Can’t I Find a Placement on My Own?
Of course you can find a placement on your own, but consider this: the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP) has over 190 member programs. That does not include all therapeutic programs in the U.S. Each website is tailored to making programs look amazing. Most of them are, but how do you know which program is actually the best fit? This is where AdvocacySD and its educational consultant team comes in. We travel nationwide and internationally to personally tour programs, to interact with their staff and to get a solid feel for each program prior to making residential placement recommendations.
Programs for Young Adults
There are a variety of therapeutic programs for young adults that have varying levels of therapeutic supports, including residential placement. From intensive therapy to helping young adults move past their inability to move forward, our educational consultants can find young adult programs that will help students ages 18+ to launch toward success.
Next Steps
If any of the above sounds like your student or young adult, use our Contact Form to schedule a consultation with our educational consultants to discuss next steps for launching toward success.