Empowering Families and Connecting Care with Dr. Joshua Rosenthal

 

Transcript

ANNOUNCER:  This is Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families, and your window into the world of special education. Special needs parenting can be challenging, and we want to make it easier by providing you with the resources you need to help your child. Stell deep into the world of learning differently with your host, special education attorney Adam Dayan. 

ADAM:  I am pleased to present my next guest on the Curious Incident podcast, Joshua Rosenthal. Dr. Joshua Rosenthal is a licensed psychologist in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, who specializes in working with children and families. His interest in psychology began early in life after a meaningful experience with his own therapist during his parents’ divorce, which inspired his commitment to helping children and families navigate difficult moments. He has been working in the field for nearly two decades and founded Manhattan Psychology Group, MPG, in 2011, growing it from a solo practice into a multidisciplinary behavioral health organization with more than 150 clinicians. Through MPG, Dr. Rosenthal, and his team provide psychotherapy, neuropsychological evaluations, ABA therapy, and special education support for children, adults, and families. A major focus of the practice is helping families navigate complex systems like schools, evaluations, and developmental services so they can access the right support as early as possible. Joshua, welcome. Thanks for having me. It’s great to have you. Yeah. I’m going to start off. Tell me more about the meaningful experience you had with your own therapist when your parents were going through a divorce and how a therapist can help children and families navigate difficult moments. 

JOSH:  So my parents got divorced when I was started probably when I was 11 and didn’t end until mid-high school. And it was the prototypical worst-case scenario, highly contentious lawyers, lots of arguing, lots of stress, sort of the worst way you wanted a divorce to go. And I think one of the best things that happened was we all got put in therapy. It was really my first time being in therapy as a conscious child. And the therapist that I work with, he knew how to connect with me. He wasn’t really interested in my parents or their thoughts on anything. He just wanted to be in the room with me. It helped. I mean, it was a transformative experience to have someone going through, have someone on my side going through that time of my life. I stayed in touch with him all the way through college into grad school. And that relationship sort of became an inspiration for me and what I wanted to do. I said, okay, this is really meaningful. I want to help other children the same way that I was helped. 

ADAM:  What lessons did you take away from the way he was connecting with you, that you and your team use in practice to connect with the children you help? 

JOSH:  In New York City and probably other major cities, you can have a lot of outside pressures. If you work with insurance, you have to make the insurance company happy. You have to write your notes a certain way. There might be some demands from the parents like, oh, I want you to do this with my child. Or there could be pressures within the practice. You know, like I have to see this many patients. I mean, there’s a number of things that make it difficult for a psychologist or a therapist to work. But when you’re in the room with the child, they don’t care about any of that stuff. They just want someone who’s present with them, who understands them and can let them tell their story. And if you keep coming back to that, you’ll be a great clinician and you’ll have a great company. But when you lose sight of that, it all sort of becomes less meaningful. And it can start to weather on the company and the mission and the vision. 

ADAM:  And from a clinical standpoint, how do you achieve that connection or from a parent’s perspective? What should they be looking for in a therapist to know that that therapist is connecting with their child? 

JOSH:  If you’re working with children, it’s certainly an advantage to have children. There’s nothing like being a parent in terms of understanding the parent experience. It doesn’t mean you can’t work with children if you don’t have children. It just think that it’s an added layer of training, let’s say, right, or experience. If you’re looking for a child therapist for your child, you want someone you feel really comfortable with, you want someone that has seen it all before, and you want someone that your child looks forward to seeing. I mean, that’s the number one thing. If the child does not look forward to seeing this person, it will not work. So kids want to have fun. They want the session to be fun. It’s the child therapist’s job to weave in the therapy around it being fun for the child. 

ADAM:  So this is a great segue. You mentioned being a parent. You’re not only a psychologist working with families. You’re also a parent raising a child who attends a private school to allow her education to be individualized to her needs. How has experiencing the education system as a parent influenced the way you understand what families are going through? 

JOSH:  I’m a clinician working in the city. I know people, and I have resources, and with all that, it’s still stressful. So there’s a lot of barriers for families to understand what their options are. And if you have resources, it’s a little bit easier. If you don’t have resources, it’s even more difficult. 

ADAM:  You mentioned how stressful it is. And I understand where you’re coming from as a professional myself who has children. What makes it so stressful even when you have the knowledge, resources, and expertise from having practiced in this field? 

JOSH:  If you back up for a second, you think about what’s the job of a parent? The job of the parent is to make sure your child is safe and help them learn how to navigate the world and become independent. When your child’s at school, you have no control over that. You have no say of what happens day to day. All you do is get an inconsistent, highly emotional report back from a child about what happened at school. And if your child is struggling, it’s really hard for the parent because they can’t control what happens. So let’s just say that’s a typical child. They don’t have any learning issues. If you add on top of that a child learning issues, then it’s another layer of stress. There’s typical things that are going to happen to kids, bullying subjects are hard, they feel sick, they don’t want to go, teachers, maybe you’re tough. But if you add on a layer of learning challenges on top of that, it’s like double the stress for the parent. So when you’re deciding, oh geez, my child has a learning issue. I got to fix this. If I don’t fix this, it’s going to stay with them for the rest of their life. And it’s on me. It’s my responsibility. That’s something that doesn’t shut off as a parent. You don’t just like check that at the door and then forget about it. You’re always thinking about it because you kind of blame yourself. Like my child does this way because of my genes. And so if you if you are moving into the special education world, you want to pick a place that’s going to provide the best remediation possible so that your child can catch up and go off to college or whatever it is that they want to do. And picking a place that is going to provide that extra support is really hard because you don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors. Like you drop your child off and you want to believe that it is the way it seems on the website and the recommendations and feedback, but you don’t really know. So it’s a leap of faith. 

ADAM:  I think parents are sometimes surprised by how overwhelming and emotional the process can be. And I appreciate your sharing that and sharing your vulnerability. 

JOSH:  Yeah, for sure. 

ADAM:  When you’re sitting in that parent seat yourself, do you ever find that your clinical background makes the experience easier or does it sometimes make you more aware of how complicated this system really is? 

JOSH:  Yeah, that’s a great question. It helps in some ways and it hurts in others. It helps because I know what questions to ask. I know who to go to. I can sort of suss out what’s going to be real and what’s going to be not so helpful. But at the same time, I’m likely to over rotate, meaning I know the pitfalls in New York City. I know how every parent wants to get a full comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. That just doesn’t happen anywhere else. Why? Because there’s a lot of people that do it and there’s a lot of parents that will pay for it. And so the risk for me was, okay, how do I stay in the middle? How do I stay sort of grounded in what’s the best for my daughter, but what’s not also going overboard and just because it’s available? So I think that it’s been helpful, but I also think that there’s some things I would have done differently if I could go back in time. 

ADAM:  Do you want to say what those things are? 

JOSH:  Yeah, I think that when my daughter was younger, there was some red flags and I probably poo-pooed them a little bit and sort of looked the other way because I was like, ah, she’s just young, she’s going to outgrow this and you’re just being alarmist. And maybe if I had gotten an evaluation earlier and we had sort of taken it at face value, been a little bit more trusting of the people that were working with my daughter, we could have made some decisions a little sooner. It wasn’t irreparable. It wasn’t something that’s going to haunt us forever. But as a parent, you’re always gut checking yourself. You’re always thinking, like, how can I be a better husband, better father? 

ADAM:  This comes up so much on this podcast about spotting those red flags. And if these episodes do anything, I wanted to help parents be attuned to that, just looking for things that seem not right or you feel it in your gut that something needs closer attention. And I think parents who are listening can’t hear that enough. I mean, if you have that gut feeling that something isn’t right, it’s important to take it seriously and have a look. 

JOSH:  And if you’re not sure, just ask a couple people, you know, like weigh the pros and cons. Don’t keep it to yourself. Try not to get caught up in the shame cycle. There’s really nothing to be ashamed about. Everybody, every kid has strengthened weaknesses. And the sooner you can catch them, the sooner you can remediate them. I was taking it a little too personal, but thankfully she’s in a good spot now. And, you know, I think we’re going to be okay. But I definitely think that parents should sort of let themselves off the hook a little bit more. It’s okay for things to not be perfect. Everybody knows that what happens behind closed doors is not pretty. You know, it doesn’t matter what it looks like on the outside. And you’re not alone. 

ADAM:  Those are great points. Thank you. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the Curious Incident Podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. Give you a thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode. We’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to Podcast@DayanLawFirm.com. 

ADAM:  When a family receives a first diagnosis for their child, especially in the private school world, there’s often confusion about what comes next. From your perspective, what do families most need in that moment that they often aren’t getting? 

JOSH:  I think families need, first of all, a trusted advisor, someone that has been, you can see around corners, someone who’s been in that seat for a while, and someone that’s going to help them create a roadmap of options. The last thing you want is zero options. You always want to have more than one option. You never want to have your back up against the wall. You never want to be doing things last minute. So someone that can help you see around corners and just create options. That’s the best spot for a parent to be in. So you can make an informed choice. 

ADAM:  Let’s talk a little bit more about that. The flexibility of having different options as part of your roadmap and not backing yourself into a corner because you waited too long. 

JOSH:  Yeah. To your point earlier, trusting your gut, a parent knows when something is off. I don’t care what a professional says. If you feel like something’s off, talk to someone, get an evaluation, get a screener. There’s really no downside to it. Follow up as things progress. Again, trusting your gut, getting an evaluation, talking to people about what you’re going through, not just people that are going to yes you, but maybe people that are going to challenge your assumptions a little bit. Whether it’s a clinician, whether it’s an attorney, whether it’s another parent that has already been through it, just try to talk to people and figure out, hey, what did you do in this situation? Try to come up with two or three different paths forward. And then if you have a partner, hopefully talk with your partner about it and just know that it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint. There isn’t going to be one decision that’s going to change the course of your child’s life. And even if you make the wrong decision, you can always change that. Nothing’s permanent. Nothing is permanent. Everything is fixable as long as you’re staying focused on it. Everything before, I thought that maybe I missed a couple things. That’s okay. We corrected. We got what we needed and now we’re on a better course. I think just surrounding yourself with people that you trust is really important for creating options. 

ADAM:  I know sometimes parents can get paralyzed, not knowing what’s the next step. Do you have any words of advice for avoiding that? How to keep moving one foot in front of the other on this course? 

JOSH:  The first piece to that is just self-awareness as a parent. When you have a child that’s struggling, it can be extremely shameful for you and you may not want to talk about it or you may not want to admit what’s really going on, especially first diagnosis. If you have a child that’s getting a first diagnosis for a parent, that is like a punch to the stomach sometimes. Just being really self-aware as a human being and understanding like, okay, I’m feeling really terrible about this. I’m feeling shame. I don’t really want to talk to people. I’m embarrassed about it. I’m just recognizing that those are all natural reactions, but you can’t stay in that forever. You have to be able to move forward. Finding people to get out of that paralysis where you’re in your own world island. Like I said before, just reaching out and just admitting, hey, this is what’s going on. This is the honest truth. This is my fears. What do you think? Starting to have conversations with people about it. 

ADAM:  You’ve talked about how important responsiveness is when families are navigating these challenges. In many ways, it’s about much more than just clinical expertise. What does a truly supportive experience look like for a parent reaching out for help? 

JOSH:  I’m so happy you asked about this. When you’re starting your practice as a psychologist, you just focus on helping families and doing being good clinician. But when you start getting busier and you start growing and you can’t keep up with the phone calls and you need to hire people, you’re not a solo practitioner anymore. You have other things you need to think about. One is customer service. We don’t like to talk about customer service because it sounds like Amazon. I’m not Starbucks. What do I have to think about that? 

ADAM:  I love talking about it. I know I’m going to agree with everything you’re about to say. 

JOSH:  Let’s talk about customer service. I just put myself in the shoes of a frustrated, scared parent. Any doctor I go to in the city, I’m super skeptical that it’s going to be a good experience. It could be any doctor. I was at a Chick-fil-A the other day. Yes, I eat a Chick-fil-A sometimes. I cannot tell you how amazing the experience was. I literally pulled the guys aside and I’m like, what’s going on here? This is a Chick-fil-A in New Jersey. Come on, New York City, let’s go. They said they were trying to be the best Chick-fil-A in all New Jersey. I was so taken back by that. I was like, yes, let’s go. That’s awesome. I want my company to be the best behavioral health company in the city. You can’t do that when you don’t return phone calls. You can’t do that when you don’t get packed with people over email. As a scared parent, when you’re trying to find services for your child or even for yourself, if someone doesn’t get back to you, it’s like they’re telling you that you’re not important. I don’t want people to feel that way. I want people to feel important and respected. It’s minimal effort to just get back to someone or answer the phone or say, hey, I’m sorry, we’re really busy right now. Let me schedule a time to call you back and talk and hear what’s going on. Those things go such a long way. When I was building my company, I just don’t think a lot of people were thinking about that. I was like, I’m going to think about that and that’s how we’re going to grow. We’re just going to be a great experience for parents. Not just clinically, they’re going to look forward to calling my company and working with us. It’s not rocket science, but it’s so important for families that are struggling. 

ADAM:  So important. For listeners who may not be familiar with it, can you briefly explain what Manhattan Psychology Group is and the kinds of services and support your team provides to children, adults and families. 

JOSH:  Manhattan Psychology Group has been around since 2011, started out as a solo practice and have just grown it and added more services and more providers. And right now, we’re about 150 clinicians and growing and we provide services for all ages. And I like to try to think about it like one stop shopping. So what we don’t do is speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy or medicine, but everything else outpatient, we do. So if you need counseling or psychotherapy or parent training or specific CBT protocols, exposure response or PCIT, we do all that. If you need testing, any type of testing, neuropsychological, psycho educational, autism testing, forensic testing, we can do all that. If you need special education services, so tutoring or sets or see it work, we can do that. And then if you need applied behavioral analysis or behavior therapy, we can do that and we do it in the home, we do it in the school. And we work with families that are paying out of pocket, which is pretty typical for New York City, you give it a super bell. And then also we work with families that have impartial hearing orders. So those are the two types of families to work with. 

ADAM:  If you’re a family considering what organization to go with for these types of services, what questions do you think the families should be asking of the organizations they are considering? 

JOSH:  You have two choices. You can go to an individual provider, someone that’s been recommended to you. And I always think it’s great to get a recommendation. I don’t necessarily trust Google reviews, but a recommendation from someone that has, you know, their child has seen that particular provider, it goes a long way. If you can’t see an individual provider and you have a name for a group, let’s say, you want to know, is, am I going to be seeing the person that you’re recommending? Or am I going to be seeing someone else, you know, from the group, right? Like, am I going to have a choice on who I get to see? Is this person going to be licensed or under supervision? Or are they someone that’s been with the company for a short amount of time or been with the company for a long period of time? Is this person in a director or supervisory role? Or are they just a provider seeing patients there? Obviously the financial piece is important. Is this like cash experience? Are you going to give me a super bill? How much are you going to help me with my super bill? Right? Like, are you just going to give me something and then I’m on my own? And then we started doing recently, which is really helpful as we work with a company that will provide all of your out of network benefit information in advance. So we can give that to you so you can find out, you know, how much money am I going to get back? What’s my upfront cost going to be? Like, all that stuff that’s kind of messy with insurances and if you’re paying cash, it’s important. So that’s really helpful that we can do. And then what’s the types of services that you’re going to be providing to me? Every practice is a little bit different and websites are great, but when the rubber hits the road, you’re entitled as a parent and a consumer to know specifically what’s going to happen in the room. And that I think globally, that’s an issue with mental health and psychology and psychiatry is that like what’s happening in the room. Medicine is very clear. You’re going to come in. I’m going to give you a script. You’re going to take a pill, but the black box of therapy, we can do a better job as clinicians in terms of explaining what are the goals, what’s going to happen as a result of this therapy process. And you’re entitled to ask that as a parent. Absolutely. 

ADAM:  Definitely. Those are great points. Josh, over the years, you’ve launched several initiatives from the Big Apple Day program to tools like the electronic daily report card. And now as we mentioned through MPG, you’re supporting even more children and families. Can you talk a little about those projects and what makes MPG different from other practices? 

JOSH:  Those names are blast from the past, which I’m glad you brought up. I think daily report card was my attempt to take behavior tracking, progress monitoring that happens in schools and make it sort of an easy, shareable experience so that you’re not using paper and Google Forms. I think I was a little ahead of the curve and I didn’t quite have a handle on the technology and the costs associated with building something like that. So that was a learning opportunity for me going a little bit outside my wheelhouse in terms of providing clinical services. But it was a great learning experience, an expensive learning experience, but definitely worth it. We did that for a number of years and then I just had to shut it down. I couldn’t support it. And the other thing you mentioned, Big Apple Day program, I’m actually quite proud of that program. That was a summer treatment camp or program that we set up and ran on the upper west side for nine summers. And we provided specialized therapeutic support, social skills training for kids that couldn’t go to mainstream camps. And it was a very regimented, highly structured, well oiled machine that started off in year one as one thing. And then by year nine, it was a completely separate thing. And that was my first experience really running a team. We had 40 counselors and supervisors and a nurse and like, you know, just a really well oiled machine every year we got better. We had manuals. It was an amazing experience. The parents loved it. We loved it. It became so intensive. We actually shut it down before COVID, just serendipitously. But I love that program. And I think that’s really what sort of catapulted MPG into New York City was that program. 

ADAM:  Amazing. What are you doing currently to be on the cutting edge or innovate in this area? 

JOSH:  We sort of live in two worlds. We have the mental health world, which is all of our counseling and testing services. And then we have the ABA world, which is mostly around autism and children with autism, developmental disabilities. Both fronts were always thinking about what’s next. And that’s my job as the visionary, as the CEO is what is next? What can we do? I don’t see patients anymore. And so my job is really hyper focused on what can I do to make an impact to help more families? That’s the only thing that I’m thinking about. What can I do? What’s coming next? What could I do more of? How can we expand? How can we help more families? And I love that mission. When I was seeing patients, I would be in the room one on one with a child or the parents or an adult when I saw adults. And it was an amazing experience having that intimacy with them, learning about their family, them bringing me in. And I loved it. And I did that for 15 years. And I missed that. I certainly missed that. But you’re in a room with someone for hours at a time. And that’s all I could do. I couldn’t do anything else. And I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything else. So there’s a limit to that in terms of how many families you can work with. Now as purely CEO, I was trying to do both purely CEO, I can impact more families. And I see that as my mission to do that. So on the ABA front, we work with private pay families that are paying out of pocket for ABA. And then we work with impartial hearing order in families that have won these orders. And both families have needs. And there’s just an overwhelming demand for the service. There’s not enough providers for the services because these kids, they need 10, 20, 30 hours of this service. So it’s a huge demand on the provider. So what can you do? You need to implement training systems and supervision systems so that you can support the providers to do really good work and help more families. People that are BCBA’s and behavioral interventionists, they want to be part of a community in a team because it’s so laborious to do that work. Right? I mean, it’s like being a lawyer is super intense. Right? Like I know a lot of lawyers that love being part of a team, they want to have colleagues and right. And so we try to provide that for our providers. We have a couple 1099s, but mostly everyone’s W2. Why? Because we want to have that cohesion together. And we want to figure out how to make it the best work environment so they’re happy so they can help more kids. 

ADAM:  I think it makes a big difference for the clients or patients as well. That comes across when a team is cohesive and collaborative and excited about the work that they’re doing because it feels meaningful and important. 

JOSH:  100%. That’s the top down. That’s what we talked about earlier. It’s very much a top down. If you just give people patience and let them do their thing and that’s all you give them, they’ll come in and then they’ll leave. If you give them more than that, if you give them a career, supervision, training, support, continue education, like all these things that you would want if you’re early on in your career, they stay. And spoiler alert, we’re on the verge. I think I mentioned this over email. We’re on the verge of putting together an alternative education program for students that really have high need and there isn’t really a good spot for them in the New York City DOE system. So that, again, that’s another way that we’re trying to create more opportunities to help more kids. 

ADAM:  Do you want to say a little bit more about what this is going to consist of? 

JOSH:  Think about it like a school-like environment for kids that need one-to-one EBA, they cannot learn without it. There’s just not a lot of spots like that in the city. And whether you’re paying out a pocket or you’re getting reimbursed or the DOE is paying directly, we’re going to try to make it work and try to help as many families as possible. By my calculations, there’s probably 2,000 to 3,000 kids like this in the New York City public school system out of a million that are this high need and there aren’t 2,000 to 3,000 spots for these kids to get really quality one-to-one EBA. And so we’re going to try to create that. Nice. On the mental health front, people need evaluations. It’s very hard to get an evaluation in New York City that isn’t $10,000 and takes six months. I mean, there’s just such a demand for quality, like neuropsych evaluations. So one of my directors, she has put together and built an extremely robust testing program where you can come in, you can get it done in six weeks, and you can get it done for less than $7,000, $8,000, $10,000 what some people are charging. And there’s nothing against paying that much, but none of them can afford that. And so again, that’s another way I said to her. I said, look, we have testing, but we could be doing more. How do we turn this into something where we can help more families? 

ADAM:  Where do you derive your inspiration from? I love everything you’re saying about making it a client friendly or patient friendly process. Where do you get your inspiration for that from? 

JOSH:  Honestly, I think it comes with almost turning 50. Your priorities when you’re young are what they are supposed to be when you’re young. You know, that idea of die with zero. I don’t know if you read that book. It’s a really inspirational book. I just feel like my time on this planet is limited and I want to have the most impact as possible. And it comes from personal experience, too, like being a parent, getting older, going through the special education system. There’s a lot of room for improvement. I feel like it’s my obligation to do it. 

ADAM:  Great. 

ANNOUNCER:  People need parents to know about it, too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to Podcast@DayanLawFirm.com. 

ADAM:  Josh, one thing that surprises many people is how few professionals fully understand special education systems in New York. After years of working with families and seeing the system from both a professional and personal perspective, if you could change one thing about how we support parents of children with special needs, what would that be? 

JOSH:  Great question. I think about this a lot. I’ve been on a Zoom tour, let’s say, talking about how to reach families earlier about their options in the special education world. And I think we’ve talked about this that there’s so many people, professionals, as well as parents that don’t know all their options. They don’t know about the due process complaint, for example. They think that they have to just take what their school gives them. As I’ve been doing this, I’ve been realizing that I need to go back further. Every time I find one place, I think, okay, how can I reach those people earlier on? And I’ve come to the conclusion that it starts with the pediatricians. Because the pediatricians are the first place that a parent will take their child when they think something is afoot. And that interaction that happens between the parent and the pediatrician and the child could be so young they don’t even know what’s going on. They’re sitting in the room, maybe they’re drawing, maybe they’re on their parents’ phone. And the pediatrician is looking their parents in the eye and they’re saying, there’s something here and we need to have a serious talk. That moment right there, that’s a life-changing moment. And I’m not a pediatrician. I don’t know what it’s like to have that conversation. And we have conversation, we have tough conversations with parents after we do a neuropsych and we give them a formal diagnosis. But that could be months or years after the pediatrician, hopefully has had that tough conversation. So right there in that moment, that’s the striking opportunity. And I would love for pediatricians to have a roadmap right there. Whether it’s an app or a booklet or a person that they can talk to, that’ll say, okay, here’s starting point. Your child is six months, 12 months, 18 months, whatever. Here is the roadmap of options and tributaries and decisions that are gonna happen for you in New York City. If you open this door, two more doors are gonna open. If you open this door, these two doors are gonna open. There is no place for that to happen. I mean, maybe if you can hire a consultant and pay a lot of money for someone to walk you through, but not everyone can do that. And nor should everyone have to do that. It should be more transparent. I’ve spoken to countless organizations and there is so much funding and resources available to New York City families, but you can’t find it. It’s in this complex web of nonprofits and grants and it’s impossible to access. I literally have spoken to probably five different organizations that are offering literally the same thing. And I’m thinking to myself, do you guys know about each other? Like they’re making announcements and they’re saying, hey, we have these free resources. And I’m saying, well, none of the parents know about this. So there’s a complete communication breakdown within New York City. And look, it’s great that there’s all these options and people are trying. There’s all this nonprofit money being flown in and grants and people are working really hard. There are amazing people working at these nonprofits, doing God’s work, but there’s no way to find them or access them. 

ADAM:  You’re right that there are amazing nonprofits out there doing remarkable work and that there’s a lack of awareness about that, there’s a disconnect. So if you want to talk more specifically about that, I think that would be great to hear more about. 

JOSH:  Part of my Zoom tour was to educate nonprofits that are working with families that have special needs children about what their options are. They’re not making meaningful progress at school. And most of the nonprofits have heard of other nonprofits because that’s what happens. Nonprofits refer and work with other nonprofits because they think, oh, well, our services are free. Let’s send our families to other services that are free. That’s our only option. And what I found is not only did these nonprofits not know about, let’s say, the due process complaint option for the families, but they only thought that it was available through other nonprofits that are working in special education. And what I found over the last, I’d say five years is that there are way more special education attorneys that are providing the same fee structure of fee shifting as the nonprofits, but they’re in the private world. And so none of the families know about it. And so to me, it was sort of a wake up call about not only are there nonprofits offering all types of mental health services for free, but there are so many other resources that families just don’t know about. And so my job has really been to spread awareness about these options for families so that they can make informed choices. 

ADAM:  How are you doing it? You know, what’s happening on these Zoom tools? 

JOSH:  It’s been amazing. I mean, I’ve been sending out lots and lots of emails. I apologize in advance if anyone has got an email from me that didn’t want it. Feel free to unsubscribe and I’ll take it personally. I’ve been setting up meetings with the leadership of these nonprofits, child protective services, a lot of the care coordination organizations in the city, some of the major hospitals, and I’ve been talking with leadership and I’ve been sort of telling them what I’m trying to do. And they’re like, okay, this is great. Can you present? And then I schedule a Zoom meeting with all their constituents and I try to educate them and I give them one page flyer, I give them slide decks and I try to educate them about options. And then hopefully they take it out to their families that they’re working with. Hopefully people will connect. I’m trying to play matchmaker. 

ADAM:  I think this is super important. We’ve been in the crosshairs of this. My firm has where parents are in the process of changing their child’s placement from a public school, let’s say, to private school placement. And someone has filed a complaint with ACS or CPS and now the organization, the nonprofit thinks that the parent is being neglectful of their child. When what’s really happening is that they’ve engaged legal counsel to help them navigate this maze and find a suitable placement. But try telling that to ACS or CPS and you’d be surprised how difficult that piece can be. Sometimes because they’re not familiar with this legal process of availing yourself of private school placement and seeking funding. And so a parent says, I’m taking these steps and the nonprofit doesn’t accept or believe that the parent is acting responsibly. 

JOSH:  The other piece to this that’s important is that we have no financial connection to any of these attorneys or schools or anything like that. So people are a little skittish when you start recommending things. They think, well, what’s in it for you? And so I have to be very transparent with them, which I have no problem doing. And that’s another thing that I want to point out is that sometimes parents don’t understand what’s happening behind closed doors with the people that they’re working with. Now, I’m certainly not gonna call anyone out, but there are definitely people that take advantage of the system in New York City. It’s a big system, it’s bureaucratic. There’s not a lot of oversight and there’s people that take advantage. And unfortunately, a lot of the families that don’t have means, maybe English is not their first language are susceptible to that. And that’s why I would tell every parent, make sure you understand what you’re signing and make sure you understand the people that you’re working with. 

ADAM:  Yeah, that’s good advice. When we talk about supporting children with developmental differences, the conversation often starts later at school age, but you’ve emphasized the real journey. It begins much earlier with early intervention. Why is that period so important for families? 

JOSH:  To my point of what I was saying earlier that when you have a baby, and I call any kid under five a baby, the way that their brain develops, I mean, if you look at an infant, if you see an infant and you play with them when they’re three months old, and then you play with them when they’re five months old, they’re a completely different child. And so think about the impact on a child with autism at that point, right? So everyone knows early intervention is the way to go. The sooner you intervene, the more progress you can make. And so that starts with babies in early intervention. And thankfully, New York City has a robust early intervention program, but because of funding issues, there’s a lot of places that are closing down. And it’s actually quite hard to get services now for families and they’re missing time. They’re missing important windows. And by the time they get the services, they’ve already aged out. And now they have to move into the public school system, which drops ABA from their IEP, or they have to go to a special needs preschool that doesn’t have quality ABA. You can’t start early enough. 

ADAM:  Josh, as we wrap up, many parents listening today, maybe at the very beginning of this journey, or maybe they’ve just received a diagnosis and are feeling overwhelmed by the school system, what would you want those parents to know right now? 

JOSH:  I would want parents who are just getting a first diagnosis or they’re trying to make sense of their neuropsych reporter or thinking about what to do to first of all, realize you’re not alone. And there’s no shame in where you are with your child. No one has done anything wrong. This is just the way it is. And you have lots of options in front of you. Find people you trust, whether they’re other parents or professionals, and talk to them about what your gut is telling you and ask questions and be curious and don’t keep things inside. Oh, be curious. I love that you mentioned that. Oh my God, is that the first time it’s ever happened? 

ADAM:  No, but I just got a note. I did not prompt you, you said it on your own. 

JOSH:  That’s amazing. I love that. I love that. I think curiosity is one of the best skills to have. And I was not curious enough as a young man. I think I thought I knew everything. And then as you get closer to 50, I think you realize that you don’t know anything. And just staying curious, right? As a parent, as a professional, just staying curious and admitting that you don’t know everything. And if you’re lucky enough to have a partner is to try to do it together with your partner because it can be scary to do it on your own. And if you’re lucky enough to have a partner that you trust, try to do it together with your partner. 

ADAM:  I think that’s a great note to end on. I want to thank you for being a guest on the show. I really admire all of the wonderful work that you and your team are doing. And I look forward to updates about the exciting things that you have in store. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. 

ANNOUNCER:  Thanks for listening to Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families. Don’t forget to subscribe for a new episode every month. For more resources and helpful information, check out our website and blog at Dayanlawfirm.com. This podcast provides general information which is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice. You should not rely on this information for any purpose. For legal counsel, you should consult with an attorney to discuss your specific circumstances. You’re listening to this podcast does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and the law offices of Adam Dayan, PLLC. No attorney-client relationship is established unless a retainer agreement has been executed between the clients and the law offices of Adam Dayan. This podcast may constitute attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any guests featured or resources mentioned on this podcast are for information purposes and are not endorsed by the law offices of Adam Dayan PLLC.