Education Law Partnerships for Therapists and Providers

The Law Offices of Susan J Deedy has launched a new service available for therapists, counselors and other providers who work with children and teens with special needs. This unique partnership allows you to offer greater levels of support for your clients. Our team will provide consultations with the provider and parents together, giving instructions and guidance on what you can do to get the school district to provide appropriate services or accommodations to help the child while in the school setting. This service allows parents to benefit from our expertise in advocating for students’ rights at CSE meetings for decades, without incurring the expense of retaining lawyers.

For more information about this new service, please reach out to our team today using our online form, or call (516) 221-8133.

About This Service

You work closely with your clients. You see their progress, their setbacks, and the gaps between what they're receiving at school and what they actually need to thrive.

But something is missing.

Maybe they are not getting the structured support they need given executive functioning deficits. Maybe they are not having their sensory issues addressed through movement breaks within the class, or access to a sensory gym. Maybe they appear overwhelmed and they need a point person to check in with during the day. May they need to be allowed to start the day a little later, or they need to leave class early so they do not have to walk through the busy hallway.

While you know they need help —we can assist you and the parent to navigate the school district process to get those supports formally recognized and implemented through this program.

The Law Offices of Susan J. Deedy & Associates has launched a consultation model that allows therapists, counselors, and private providers to collaborate directly with an experienced special education attorney — not to hire the firm to represent the family, but to teach you and your client how to get the school-based supports their child needs through the proper channels and to teach you about their rights throughout the process.

What This Program Is

This is not legal representation. Parents who enroll in this program are not hiring the firm to dispute an IEP, negotiate with district attorneys, or appear at due process hearings. That level of engagement exists as a separate service for families who need it, and it involves a formal retainer agreement between the parent and the firm that would be more costly.

What this program offers is something different — and for many of your clients, something more accessible. It is a structured consultation model built around the relationship you already have with your client, designed to give both of you the legal knowledge and strategic guidance you need to pursue additional school-based services effectively and with confidence.

Think of it as adding an attorney's expertise to your existing work with a family in order to round out the support that you are already providing, as it relates to services through the student’s school.

How the Collaboration Works

When you identify a student who would benefit from additional support within the school setting, you can schedule a session with one of our team members. We will need some background information and from there, the firm works collaboratively with you and the family to develop a strategy for pursuing those supports through the school district's formal processes.

That collaboration can include the following:

• IEP and 504 Guidance — Advising on what types of related services, goals, and accommodations to request, and how to frame those requests so the district can be held accountable for implementing them
• Goal Review — Providing guidance on how to evaluate whether IEP goals are appropriate, measurable, and reflective of the child's actual needs
• Progress Monitoring — Helping families understand how to request data from the district to track whether mandated services are being delivered and whether the child is making meaningful progress
• Request Strategy — Walking you and the parent through the process of making formal requests to the CSE, what language to use, what documentation to provide, and how to follow up effectively
• Create Paper Trail – Guiding you on how to mold your cases that you have a high likelihood of achieving your desired result.
• Provider Coordination — Helping you articulate the clinical rationale for the services you're recommending in a way that translates into the legal and educational framework school districts respond to

The goal throughout is to get the district to formally recommend and document the supports the child needs — so that those services become part of the student's IEP or 504 Plan, and the district can be held accountable for delivering such supports.

The Types of Supports This Program Can Help Pursue

The range of accommodations and services this program can help families seek is broad. It covers both formal related services and classroom-level accommodations, including supports such as pragmatic speech goals, social skills programming, executive functioning goals, sensory tools and quiet spaces, fidgets and visual reminders, breaks during the school day, a truncated schedule where appropriate, proactive and positive behavioral strategies, designation of a point person within the school, and practical accommodations such as an extra set of books at home or notes provided in class.

These are not extraordinary requests. They are recognized accommodations and modifications, all of which are the types of supports that school districts can provide.

Why This Is a Win for Your Practice

This program isn't just a resource for your clients — it's an extension of the work you're already doing. By partnering with the firm, you are able to offer something genuinely distinctive: a pathway from your private sessions directly into the school environment, where the support your client needs can be formally documented and consistently delivered.

For therapists and counselors operating private practices, this partnership offer several benefits:

• It can mean scheduling additional collaborative sessions with families as part of the pilot program — sessions that are purposeful, legally informed, and focused on a concrete outcome.
• It can cement you as a critical resource. Other therapists may not offer this type of program, so your therapy program becomes a valuable tool that helps these parents in the long term.
• It helps the patient get the support they need. Therapy is only a part of the puzzle. Many of your patients need the school districts to understand your patient and provide additional supports. This empowers you to assist parents in obtaining the supports their child needs at school.

You will not just treat the child in your office. You're helping shape what happens to them during the hours they spend in school every day.

Who This Program Is Built For

The Education Law Partnerships program is designed for licensed therapists, counselors, and private providers such as occupational therapists, physical therapists, social skills group providers or any other clinician who works with students and identifies gaps between a student's school-based services and what that student actually needs.

If you work with children and you've ever found yourself thinking "this student needs more support at school and I don't know how to help the family get it," this program was built for you.

How to Get Started

We are currently offering this service as part of a pilot program to select providers in our local area on Long Island.

To learn more about the Education Law Partnerships program or to discuss whether your clients may be a good fit, contact the Law Offices of Susan J. Deedy & Associates at (516) 221-8133 or reach out through the online contact form. Susan and her team are happy to walk you through how the collaboration works and what the process looks like for your specific practice and client population.

Your expertise and ours, working together — for the benefit of the children and families you serve.