School Solutions
Shirley A. Shapiro, M.Ed., LDTC, Project Coordinator
School Solutions is a program that provides individual child advocacy, frequently in collaboration with SPAN. This program of personalized educational care and guidance for children and parents who have special educational needs started at Family Counseling Service, a division of 100-year old Children’s Aid and Family Services.
School Solutions extends and enhances its assistance by now providing an array of specialized educational services:
Diagnostic Evaluations
Academic and related planning and tutoring
Demystifying tests and complicated reports
Assisting with IEP preparation
Representing the child/student at meetings
Collaborative problem solving and facilitating effective working relationships between school and parents
A high priority for School Solutions is consulting with parents, both individually and in groups. The program’s director, Shirley A. Shapiro, M.Ed., LDTC is pleased to speak to interested audiences about a variety of education-related issues, such as the process of learning, learning disabilities, state and federal laws protecting children’s rights, and how to judge an “appropriate” school program.
Shapiro has a special interest and background in the learning process and emotional development of children. She is certified in New Jersey as a Teacher of the Handicapped and Learning Disabilities Teacher Consultant. In addition to her teaching experience, she has served on a national project for disabilities, chaired a governor’s panel to secure mental health services for deaf persons and was in charge of policy as Special Education Consultant to the Michigan Department of Education. Shapiro has been an advocate for children with exceptional needs in Head Start, the juvenile court system and nonprofit disability organizations.
Upon coming to New Jersey in 1989, Shapiro was Chief of Leaning Disorders at Hackensack University Medical Center’s Institute for Child Development. Most important, she is a parent!
School Solutions offers two other important learning programs. Families And Schools Together (F.A.S.T.) is a community-based collaboration between children, their families and their school. The goal of F.A.S.T. is to enhance these interrelationships and overall family functioning, thereby preventing serious learning and/or serious social problems. In addition, School Solutions has developed a very successful series of social skills learning groups for children ages 5 to 12. The groups, facilitated by clinicians, teach children through a Social Learning and Behavior Curriculum how to interact in healthy and rewarding ways with other people.
If you’re interested in knowing more about School Solutions programs and/or services, please contact Intake Coordinator Yvonne Hauch or Shirley Shapiro at (201) 445-7015.