Advocacy Services for Concerned Parents and Others

Key Benefits

Summary of Advocacy services

The staff of The Institute for Behavior Change include a Certified School Psychologist, five Licensed Professional Psychologists, and over 100 direct-service providers of behavioral support and mental health treatment to children and adolescents. Privately and as members of the Network for Behavior Change, the psychologists have presented professional testimony at Due Process Hearings, conducted hundreds of psychoeducational and psychodiagnostic evaluations of children of all ages, and have been carefully supervising the delivery of EPSDT "Behavioral Health Rehabilitation" (BHR) services for many years.

The Executive Director of the Institute began providing community-based psychological services in 1981 (more than 10 years before the community-based BHR services model for children's mental health treatment existed in Pennsylvania) and has been an effective advocate for children with developmental disabilities, including Autistic Spectrum Disorders, since 1977. By collaborating with and maintaining collegial relationships with attorneys from the Education Law Center, the Disabilities Law Project, and the Health Law Project, the Network psychologists and Institute staff they supervise are able to provide excellent advice and information to parents and others who are seeking to protect and preserve the rights and opportunities of people with disabling conditions, especially children. We have excellent working relationships with several area child psychiatrists, have staff privileges at a local general hospital with a psychiatric unit, and work with area emergency placement settings for the treatment of children in extreme crisis situations.