Our Professional Executive Function Coaches

Our son had been struggling in school for several years when we finally turned to Access to Achieve for assistance. Executive function was part of the problem, but other issues proved harder to pinpoint, which made it difficult to know how to help him. Shelley carefully listened to our concerns. Then she did an assessment, explaining the findings to us and our son with clarity and compassion. She discussed possible options in a way that encouraged and reassured us. Together we formulated a plan for our son; then Shelley took pains to assign him a coach who was a good fit for his personality and needs.

Shelley's breadth and depth of experience are reflected in every aspect of her organization. She has chosen her staff wisely; all are well qualified, multi-talented and hardworking. She coordinates their efforts, meeting with them regularly, both singly and as a group. She also stays in touch with the families Access to Achieve serves to ensure they are being served well. What's more, Shelley and her staff, deliver with real heart that goes beyond their considerable professional training and expertise. We're very grateful for her wisdom and support.

We highly recommend Access to Achieve for students with executive-skill and organizational deficits. Our son was diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia in the seventh grade, and the testing psychologist recommended we find an "organizational coach". After four years of looking and one year of an "organizational coach" who was more of a crutch than a skill-builder, we were fortunate enough to hear of Access to Achieve.

By this time our son was preparing to enter twelfth grade and not interested in parental assistance. Shelley worked in a systematic fashion-with patience and humor-to help set up systems to get organized and stay on top of his school and extra-curricular work. At a time (senior year) when many students with or without learning disabilities slack off and see a decline in their grades, our son continued working to the end of the year and did very well in all of his classes.

Half of his senior classes were online classes in a new online school that was still working out its own bugs. Staying on top of online classes is a particular challenge, and Shelley helped him tremendously with this.

In addition to all of the above, our family life was much improved by relieving us of the stress of parental-child conflict over schoolwork. We will always be grateful that we found Access to Achieve when we did.

Access to Achieve has helped me become better not only with organization and learning skills, but also has helped me achieve my academic goals.

Our daughter, who is twice exceptional and recently diagnosed with ADD, struggled with both social and learning issues since pre-school. She was an organizational nightmare. With the ever-widening learning gap we were witnessing in middle school we could not imagine how she would be adequately prepared for high school. Though we wanted to find a tutor, we weren't looking for someone who would simply do her homework. We needed professionals that could analyze the situation and come up with effective solutions to address all these needs. 

When we first learned of Access to Achieve we were not only excited to find a team with a large amount of professional experience but also individuals whose cross-specializations and personal experiences could directly address all the issues our daughter was having. Shelley took the time necessary to thoroughly gather all the information she needed from us, from the school, from assessments we had done in the past, from discussing with our daughter her concerns and developed a comprehensive impression, action plan and goals which have driven sessions. 

The coaching sessions have been focused and goal-oriented and we have all noticed an immense difference in our daughter's ability to develop and stick to an organizational system which was a primary goal this year. She went from having 24-30 late or missing assignments at a time to being fully caught up. Shelley has worked with her on social skills and behaviors through interactive sessions. She has been an invaluable addition to school meetings and was integral in helping us develop what looks like to be an effective 504 plan for high school. 

Over this last year we have watched our daughter's confidence and competence blossom and, looking forward to high school in the fall, it's hard to tell who is more excited, us or our daughter. We also look forward to continuing to work with Access to Achieve as we meet new challenges and continue to support our daughter in her pursuits.

Working with you has completely changed what I can now do in and out of the classroom.  Thank you for all your help throughout the year!!!  It's been great 🙂

Our daughter Georgia, was diagnosed with ADD-Inattentive Type, in the 7th grade. We hired Access to Achieve, to help her better understand her challenges. Georgia was able to work side-by-side with her coach to find tools and strategies she could invest in because she had a voice in their creation. The very nature of the coaching process resulted in solutions that Georgia felt committed to because she incrementally created them with her coach's guidance. 

When she struggled to remember to turn in assignments, her coach helped her design a system of reminders that dramatically changed her patterns. When Georgia had trouble starting larger projects, her coach helped her "chunk" the work into smaller more palatable bites. And when Georgia was emotionally triggered by her own frustration, her coach helped her identify her emotions and created strategies for channeling frustration into actionable solutions.

My Access to Achieve coach helped me solve the most critical problems I had as a student. I would procrastinate projects until I actually felt stressed enough to finish them, I would forget just about anything that I had to do and only remember after it was too late to do them and wrote papers worse than a 5th grader. Through the SRSD program, my coach helped me learn what the prompt was actually asking, as well as organize my thoughts so that they can be put down onto paper. 

She helped me come up with Working Memory strategies that helped keep track of my schedule and things that needed to get done. My coach helped me with Time Management and that has drastically improved my procrastination. Planning has enabled me to clearly see exactly how much time I actually have, so I don't run out of it.

We are so grateful for the work Access to Achieve has done with our family to better understand executive function generally. They helped us move beyond the label of ADHD and encouraged us to learn more about our son's challenges so that we could focus our efforts on providing the best supports for his particular needs. The careful review of the testing we previously had done, as well as the family questionnaires we completed, offered tremendous insight.

Once we actually got to the work, we were assigned our coach, who was amazing! She worked with our son in the Seeing My Time program over the summer before he started 7th grade. During his 7th grade school year, she continued to provide him with executive function coaching and then worked on Mindfulness Training with both our son and our daughter (who was 9 at the time). 

We couldn't have been more pleased! It has been 8 months or so since we last worked with Access to Achieve, and we continue to see our kids use what they've learned from to pull out of a spiral. Our coach is incredibly flexible with working with families and has a ton of patience. It has paid off in spades for our family.

We are so grateful for Access to Achieve's work with our son. Our coach's experience and depth of knowledge has been invaluable in helping him succeed at school, whether it's staying organized, creating a plan of study, or facing stressful situations with composure. She was deeply committed to serving my son's individual needs.

She took the time to get to know him, and never lost patience. Her calm demeanor-and gentle sense of humor- were real assets to putting him at ease and helping him most effectively. Our coach individualized instruction to suit his particular situation and didn't hesitate to develop new approaches if needed for him.

We're thankful that our son had the opportunity to work with Access to Achieve. There's no doubt in our minds that the skills and strategies our coach taught him, as well as her encouragement of his efforts, have made a significant difference in his high school performance. Indeed, they will serve him well in college and beyond.

My coach has shown me how to plan my time more effectively and has taught me valuable testing strategies. Combined, these skills have given me more free time and less stress at school.