Finding a fit

 

Educational Resources firm brings together independent consultants in one-stop-shop

 

By Celene Adams

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A few years ago, Certified Educational Planner Kim Rubin flew out of state to visit a 17-year-old girl whose parents were so desperate to control her unruly behavior that they locked her in at night, in a room with bars on the windows.

Rubin, president of Santa Fe's Rubin Educational Resources, recommended placing the girl in a therapeutic wilderness program followed by a private boarding school.

"She was the star of both programs," the former college counselor, school psychologist and social worker says.

Rubin founded her firm in the early 90s to provide a "one-stop-shop" of services for families whose children have behavioral problems and/or learning disabilities, the latter of which affect about 4.6 million people in the U.S., according to a 1997 National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Census Bureau.

The firm offers tutoring, psychological and educational evaluations, learning disabilities testing, AD/HD consulting, therapeutic placements and college counseling, among many other services.

Such a range of services under one roof is unparalleled, not only in New Mexico but nationally, because most educational consultants work independently, Rubin says.

It wasn't too long ago that Rubin herself was independent. For years, she worked out of the guest house behind her home, along with an alliance of 18 other independents. But last fall, she says, they were all "tripping over each other." So she bought a 1,650-square-foot office just off Old Santa Fe Trail, from which 12 consultants, including tutors, therapists, child development researchers, clinical psychologists and speech and language diagnosticians, among other specialists, all work.

All the consultants have at least a master's degree and some have two, Rubin says. There also are three consultants with doctorates and, although the firm does not offer therapeutic services, four licensed therapists.

"So we're unique [in that] everyone was very experienced when they joined the firm," Rubin says, adding that most of the consultants are former colleagues who contacted her after she started her company.

"[Most of us] also belong to a national group called the Independent Educational Consultants Association [IECA]," she says.

The Association is not a regulatory body. "There's no licensing or regulation of education anywhere in the U.S.," says Mark Sklarow, IECA's executive director. However, he lists stringent and copious membership criteria.

Although the majority of Rubin Educational Resources's clients are teenagers, the firm also works with children and adults, and consults with families and educators in 39 states. "I would say over half of our clients are national," and a few come from overseas, says Rubin.

New Mexico is both a more difficult place to run an educational resources firm and a better place, she says, "because we're such a poor state. But [we] have some of the best expertise in the nation ... because people choose to live [in Santa Fe]. ... And Los Alamos has the highest number of Ph.D.s in the nation."

Her consultants work with a range of issues -- learning disabilities such as dyslexia, psychological problems such as obsessive compulsive disorder, behavioral problems such as peer conflicts, and emotional disorders such as depression or anxiety.

Having such variety of specialists in one place is of value to clients, says Sklarow, especially in cases where one child has several types of disorders or where one family has children with different disorders. However, he notes that one should always hire an educational consultant based on the consultant who will be working with the child, not based solely on the firm's overall expertise or reputation.

Rubin Educational Resource's approach to individual clients varies depending on clients' needs. In the case of a suspected learning disorder for instance, a diagnostician uses information from teachers and parents to pinpoint what types of testing are necessary -- IQ testing, achievement tests, reading or learning disabilities tests, for instance.

Where desirable, the firm also places young adults in therapeutic wilderness schools, traditional boarding schools, schools for the performing arts, residential treatment centers, or whatever type of facility is appropriate for the particular client. "We're the only educational resources company in New Mexico that does placements," Rubin says. There are, however, four other independent educational consultants in the state who are qualified to do placements, says Sklarow.

Rubin's consultants follow up on their clients, paying at least one visit to each teen placed in a school. And, recently, the firm added transition services to its specialties -- coaches who work with families after children return home, to help facilitate communication within the family and reinforce newly acquired positive behaviors and social skills.

"We're a consulting business that's evolved into a continuum of care," Rubin says.

Yet while Rubin and her team function first and foremost as care providers, as the firm's founder and president, Rubin also has had to learn the nuts and bolts of running a business."Starting out ... I wasn't very profitable at all because I had a lot of overhead. I had to go to the school of hard knocks [in] how much it really costs to run a business. At first, I started out with just furnishing the office. I was under-capitalized to start and then I did take out a $50,000 loan. Business has tripled over the past three years as the need has increased. I've been building it steadily and really the growth has come as these services have stabilized, as we've gotten to be better known," Rubin says, attributing the growth to both the increasing sophistication of her Web site and to having brought on more consultants who generate more word-of-mouth referrals.

Fees for services range from $65 an hour for tutoring and ACT/SAT preparation, to $1,595 for college counseling, to $5,000 for a comprehensive school placement, which includes one school visit and monitoring student progress for one year.

"For out-of-state clients, depending on the state, [the services] can be funded but it's very hard to get New Mexico to fund kids," Rubin says, adding that the firm does not accept insurance because it's difficult to collect coverage. "I wish I could but I can't afford to wait for insurance companies to pay and then have a salaried person ... in charge of insurance claims."

Educational tests -- IQ tests, language and learning disability tests, for example -- are available in public schools. However, "parents often have to wait for a period of time before their child can be tested because, historically, there haven't been a lot of diagnosticians," she says.

And private therapists can administer psychological tests if they have a Ph.D. and experience in the testing field. But, "A lot of people who do therapy, psychologists, don't want to spend the time doing the testing. That's not their focus," Rubin says.

Consequently, some parents prefer to have their children tested privately.

While it is not inexpensive to have one's child tested and/or placed, Rubin says that it is more expensive in the long run, both financially and in terms of time, to visit numerous individual experts and schools while trying to discover solutions for learning and behavioral problems than it is to pay a flat fee for the type of comprehensive services her firm offers.

Further, she says it can do more harm than good to attempt to go it alone. "To me, the most dangerous thing a parent can do is go on the Internet and try to find a school or program by themselves for their at-risk teen because on the Internet all programs look great. And ... they are truly not all great."

Rubin Educational Resources guarantees that its clients will benefit from its placements, Rubin says. Although the firm does not conduct statistical studies to track clients' progress, she says receiving regular reports from therapeutic schools during the placement, visiting the teens and staying in touch with their families afterward confirm the placement is effective. "If something happened and the placement didn't work out, we'd re-place at no additional cost.

"But, that doesn't happen," she says.