I Can Help

I’m official! I am proud to announce that my website kfreyconsulting.com is now live. I am setting forth on a new venture as an educational consultant providing services and support to individuals and families with special education and mental health matters. Before I tell you what services I can provide, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I started my professional career working with adolescents with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities in the late 1990’s. At that time, I worked at a therapeutic residential treatment center in Florida where I used to live. The work there was hard. We served clients that most other facilities wouldn’t take. We weren’t quite a psychiatric hospital, but we were close. I have plenty of stories from my time there that most people would be hard pressed to believe were true. Yet, I also have so many memories of the good work that was done there – kids who were helped, families that were reunited, and lives that were changed. My time there is actually what started me on my current career path, although I didn’t really realize it at the time.

My entire childhood and adolescent years were spent with me dreaming of becoming a lawyer. I wanted to be a fancy corporate lawyer with all the perks that profession would entail. Seriously. As a kid I would flip through my step-father’s law books (he was a lawyer), and imagine my future self. However, due to a series of life-altering events, I realized I wanted to use my career to help troubled youth. So, I set out to be a social worker with a plan to get my law degree and eventually work with the juvenile and family courts.

While attending my local community college working towards my Associate’s degree, I began substitute teaching. I looked at it as a way to be around kids and continue building my resume while bringing in a little bit of income. Substitute teaching changed everything. I loved being in the classrooms with the students. I worked in a middle school that served a neighborhood that was in distress. Families often lived in poverty with many qualifying for public housing. The neighborhood was the heart of the drug business for that town, so there were the challenges of high violence and crime rates as well. I valued my ability to build relationships with the kids, even though I wasn’t their “regular” teacher. I often was at the school 3-5 days per week, and the more I worked the more I realized this was something I wanted to do. I wanted to be that teacher that impacted a student in a positive way he or she would remember years down the road. When I finished my AA degree, I had completed all the prerequisites for admittance into the Social Work program at the University of Central Florida. The problem? I no longer wanted to be a social worker. I wanted to be a special education teacher. So, I spent my summer taking the four prerequisite courses I needed so that I could be admitted into the Exceptional Education program at UCF instead. The rest, as they say, is history.

So, here I am after close to twenty years as an educator. I have spent most of this time as a special education teacher working with students who have had a myriad of disabilities: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Specific Learning Disabilities, Cognitive Disabilities, and Emotional/Behavorial Disabilities such as ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, and more. As you will see from my website, I provide services to both individual and families in the areas of special education and mental health awareness. Need help understanding your child’s disability and how you can best support him or her both at home and in school? I can help. Trying to navigate your way through your child’s IEP? I can help. Are you an adult with a disability that wants support in identifying ways to be the most successful in your professional and personal life? I can help. Perhaps you’re a business wanting to ensure you are providing a workplace that is focused on positive mental health and equity for all employees. I can also help. While I am not a licensed mental health professional, I am a licensed teacher who has spent years helping others achieve to their fullest potential. I am excited to offer that same expertise to you. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

kfreyconsulting.com

Welcome Back!

Happy New Year! While I understand there are still 4 full months of 2019 left, educators are a group fortunate enough to get two New Years – the traditional calendar year and the start of a new school year. Just as January 1st allows people the opportunity to set new goals, reach for new opportunities, and make new plans, a new school year holds all the promise for educators as well. Every August/September, teachers have the chance to touch new lives and create new experiences that will impact their students for years to come. For we all remember those teachers who excelled at their craft, instilled in us a love for learning, and inspired us to be our very best. Likewise, we also remembered the teachers we had who failed to do so. I, for one, want to be remembered as the former.

As teachers, we have many mandates placed before us. As someone who has been in education for almost twenty years, I have personally seen how the profession has evolved through time. When I first began teaching, the high stakes testing movement had just started. Curriculum mapping and pacing guides were new buzzwords instead of being part of a teacher’s every day vocabulary. While the best teachers have always been adapting curriculum to meet their students’ needs, differentiation and personalized learning were yet-to-be discovered phrases.

However, through the years, the one thing I have seen consistently in education is this: teachers want the best for their students. They want to see their students be successful, learn, and achieve. Teachers often spend time during the summer months actually learning how to be even better teachers. It is a profession where (especially in this day and age), the ones who keep at it are the ones who are truly passionate about their craft. And that’s why I keep coming back, year after year. The excitement of watching a child learn never gets old. The positivity and “can-do” spirit of my colleagues is infectious and motivates me. The challenges placed before me because of legislative, monetary, or policy demands cause me to dig even deeper within myself to meet them.

So, as we start off another year, kudos to my comrades-in-arms for rising to the occasion yet again. And for those among you who are in need of fresh ideas or seeking new avenues of support, please feel free to comment or question below.

Happy 2019-2020, everyone!

Preventing the Summer Slide

Summer Vacation. Two of the most magical words known to humankind, especially if you are a child. Summer is the time for staying up late, sleeping in even later, exploring, and adventuring. However, for far too many children, summer is also a time to forget what they worked so hard all year long to learn. Help your kids avoid the infamous summer slide with these helpful tips:

1) Read! Read! Read! I can’t stress this one enough. The more your child is exposed to reading, words, and new vocabulary, the more successful he/she will be in school. Here’s the kicker…. students can read whatever they want! Comic books/graphic novels, pop culture/gossip magazines, picture books, chapter books – it doesn’t matter. As long as your child is constantly being exposed to words within the context of a story, he/she will be in school. Use summer as a time to expose your student to all the different genres available to him/her in order to foster a love of printed word.

2) Find math everywhere! Help your child understand how important math is to his/her every day life. Have them help you determine how much the groceries are going to cost (or the movie tickets), have them cook with you using that new recipe you’ve been wanting to try, or have them help figure out the travel time to your next vacation destination. During the school year, these type of word problems are actually referred to as “real-world math problems.” So, give your children the opportunity to solve them with you as much as possible during the summer.

3) Create learning opportunities each day! Did you plant a garden this year (or even just a plant or two)? Involve your student in the process. Take a road trip to a historical site, even if its historical value is only to you. Share the things about which you are passionate, or that inspire you, with your child and explain to them why. Help them to understand the wonder that still exists in this world, and also they ways they can be a part of making this Earth a better place. Maybe use time during the summer to take him/her with you to work one day so they can learn about what you do all day long, and the academic skills you need to be successful. There are so many ways to create a love of learning in your children, and summer is often the season when you have the most time to be able to do so. Take advantage of it.

In closing, summer is a magical time for children. Capitalize on that by creating experiences that build their academic skills, foster a love of learning, and get them prepped for the work that will start again in the fall. It’ll be so much more fun for both of you than just buying them a workbook or a computer program, I promise!