Thursday, April 30, 2015

The changing face of Educational Consulting

So here we are, yet again.  After taking advantage of a few opportunities to work in direct care the last few years, we are so very excited to be back to our roots of educational consulting and therapeutic placement. Now that we are back full-time and taking clients, it seems an opportune time to (re)ask ourselves the tough questions; how has the field of educational consulting changed? Are we staying on top of the trends? And most importantly, how can we serve our families, more specifically our clients, better?

Certainly we have tweaked the delivery of our services these last few years; For example, we no longer do placement only but we also now offer case management services, which is unique in our field.  Also, as many of you know we are one of the few educational consulting firms which is firmly entrenched in the addiction world.  In this capacity we with a network of interventionists, short and long term residential programs and sober living homes to assist our clients whose primary struggle is addiction.

All that being said, when looking back over the data from these last five years, one statistic comes through loud and clear.  Yes, the adolescent market is still the lion's share of our practice but the young adult market, and all its complexities, is an ever growing aspect of our consulting practice.  As a profession we have seen this coming down the pipeline for a while now.  All one needs to do is to ask an IEC who does therapeutic work what is the biggest trend they have seen over the last 5 years, and almost universally one will hear it's that their clientele has gotten both older and sicker. 
Certainly those on the programming end of things have seen this trend for a while now, and have expanded their services accordingly.  For example, many wilderness programs and residential programs now offer a young adult track to augment the fine work they already do. One only needs to go back a few years when options for the 18-25 year old whose primary diagnosis was not substance related were few and far between.

Simultaneous to this phenomenon of program expansion, there has been an explosion of age-specific programs for young adults recently.  Having spent the better part of the last year working directly with young men in recovery, we feel we are well educated on the trends in the addiction world and have positioned ourselves well to take advantage of the opportunities out there for families who are struggling.   With this new knowledge base, Loeta will be in a strong position to serve families well along their entire journey. 

We look forward to hearing from you about how Loeta can assist you and your families.
 
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