Independent Educational Consultant Association

Hi,

I just found this website on educational consultants that I thought I’d share with you.  It is the Independent Educational Consultant Association web site (IECA) http://www.educationalconsulting.org/.   To quote them:

“IECA is widely recognized as the nation’s leading professional organization for those educational placement advisors working in private practice.  For more than 30 years IECA has helped its members to effectively serve families in placements that include colleges, local day and boarding schools, schools or programs for students with learning or behavioral needs, international placements, summer opportunities, and graduate and professional schools.”

As I mentioned in my first blog (please see the blog titled Selection Criteria), educational consultants helped us look at various programs for our daughter.   We used their services because we would not have felt comfortable sending our daughter to any program without an outside unbiased third party telling us about their experiences with the program (i.e. what types of students admitted, results of site visits by the ed. consultant, etc) .  With this said, our interaction with our ed consultant and our judgment of the programs recommended by the ed consultant played a major part in our final decision.   As examples, in one case we couldn’t imagine our daughter in a program once we visited it and, in another we discounted a program prior to our visit because the program didn’t match our values.

So if you find yourself deciding you need the services of an educational consultant you may wish to look at members of the IECA.  From what I have been able to determine from glimpsing through their web site, the IECA not only supports at risk teens but has also created standards for membership with this association.  They have also created brochures about what to expect working with one of their ed consultant and a summary page which describes the different types of programs available for teens with emotional and behavorial issues.  See http://www.educationalconsulting.org/atrisk.html. I know that this information would have been useful for us early on.

Lastly, in our experience, working with an educational consultant did not make everything go perfect.  Nevertheless, for all the reasons noted above, not using their support for us was not an option.

Should anyone have anything they would like to share, please feel free to do so.