What We Do
We are seeing a nation-wide increase in "treatment-resistant" children with a variety of behavioral disorders. These children do not respond to traditional therapy, nor to any common disciplinary methods. The behaviors vary, but common themes include defiance, hostility, and an ongoing refusal to comply with the wishes of parents or teachers.

If this sounds like your child, we can help you reverse the pattern.

In many cases, families have become quite accustomed to functioning in a volatile environment. The parents in these cases are victims of prolonged domestic abuse at the hands of their children. Behaviors of these children can include physical aggression, screaming and swearing at parents, truancy, and destroying property, among others. If this describes your situation, you have probably tried everything you have heard of, without seeing results. That's where we come in.

We specialize in treatment-resistant children. This means that when the other services aren't successful they call on us. Most of our clients are readily identified by service providers because they have been psychiatrically hospitalized multiple times, have had several police contacts, or have numerous suspensions or expulsion from school. We tend to work with children aged 3 to 17 years old.

Even if your child does not match the description above, if you are at the end of your rope, please give us a call. Our techniques are designed to work with extreme behaviors, and children who have less severe problems can often benefit in fewer than the typical 12 sessions. We can design an abbreviated protocol that will work for you and your family. An accelerated 6 session program may be available to those kids that exhibit mild to moderate behavioral difficulties. This will discussed after the initial phone assessment.

The Fair But Firm Program
The Fair but Firm program is a 12-session program that works with the caretakers in providing simple, effective techniques in parenting children that exhibit behavior problems. In many cases, we work with children who have had behavioral problems for years, and we are able to help them make a change in a matter of weeks. Many parents are empowered after only one session.

Unlike traditional therapy where the child talks with the therapist to uncover thinking errors and learns ways to behave in a more appropriate manner, the Fair but Firm program focuses more on the caretakers than the child. We provide alternative ways of communicating and behaving for all members of the family, thus creating a new dynamic that can help improve life together in the home. Many parents we work with already have very good parenting skills--it is just that their skills do not work with difficult children (who do not function or respond the way average children function or respond). We provide them with a broader skill set, enabling them to adjust their parenting approach to better work with their difficult child.

The Fair but Firm program is not a substitute for psychotherapy. It is often a method that can work in concert with psychotherapy, or can precede or follow psychological treatment. Our goal is to change the behavior, while the goal of a psychotherapist is to change the underlying thinking. In many cases, it is important to address both.

What Makes Us Different

First of all what we do is not therapy. There is nothing we are going to say to your child that 100 people before us didn't say. We have no magic words and spend minimal time working directly with the child. What we do is teach parents and professionals a non-confrontational program that focuses on changing us. When you change yourselves, you change the environment. This causes the child to adjust to our environment instead of us constantly changing to fit them. Here is a small list of differences you will see in our approach:

· We don't need the child's cooperation...only the adults.
· We change the child from the outside in not from the inside out. This makes changes much faster and more lasting by empowering the adults.
· We have a motivation section in our program but that comes at the very end. We do not encourage parents to "catch them being good",
  reward positive behaviors (i.e. pay them for doing well), etc.
· We do not waste time assessing parenting skills. If your skills were working you wouldn't be calling us. We begin the training on session 1 and we
  always move forward.
· We don't focus on "which disorder does my child have" but work on "what are you going to do about it...how are you going to fix it".
· We do not blame the parents. Our philosophy is that it is "always the child's fault". This is a crucial concept because if it is their fault then they can fix it.
   If it is somebody else's fault then they are the victims. We teach people to not be victims.
· We don't charge by the hour so you are never rushed and you can be assured to get all your questions answered.
· We provide real-time coaching so you can call/email when you have a question or problem and not wait until next session (note: this is an
   informational services and not to be used for 911/emergency calls. If you or someone else is unsafe call 911 or your local emergency response
   team for a more immediate response).
· We guarantee our work.

Billing
The in-home program costs $2,500 and includes:

· Assessment
· 12 sessions over a 6 month period of time
· Real-time Behavior Coaching - Phone support for the family via phone for the full 6 months
· Travel time to and from the home for each of the 12 sessions

There are several sources of funding that may pay for the in-home behavioral services. The funding used in the past includes but may not be limited to: SASS Flex funds, ICG, foster care/intact families programs, DCFS post adoption, LAN/Community based programs, local school districts, Mental Health/Juvenile Justice (probation) department, and private pay Additional services such as court dates, school/hospital staffings, are billed at a regular hourly rate of $145. Accelerated programs are available and will be discussed following the assessment.