Hi my name is Theresa. Let me tell you a bit about my background.

I have worked in the health and education fields for well over 30 years. My formal schooling is in rehabilitation with training in behavior management, interpersonal communications and child development. For the largest part of my life, I have also been an avid student and observer of human behavior. My passion has always been about parenting and person to person relationships.

Professionally and personally, I have been mentoring parents and families for many years on encouraging and supporting development in children and on positive, practical strategies for dealing with misbehavior. I worked as an SLPA doing speech and language therapy with pre-school aged and school aged children as well as adult and geriatric clients.

My own experience in raising 3 wonderful sons (and a few strays picked up along the way) has given me hands on experience in the challenges of parenting. Every day I worked with other educators, support staff and especially parents, to address and help find solutions to parenting challenges.

Over the last 16 years, aside from doing some contract work facilitating a positive parenting program, I was part of an amazing early education team in a pre-kindergarten program, working 4 years as an SLPA and then for 12 years as an in-home specialist working with over 70 families each year. My role was to mentor and guide parents in strategies to support and assist developmental skills in their children and to mentor them on practical and applicable strategies for dealing with behavioral challenges. I also supported families in finding other supports they may need within the community at large. I truly loved my job and I was devastated when funding cuts caused the closing of most of the Pre-K sites. I have deeply missed the opportunity to work with and help families learn and practice strategies to support their child’s learning and development. It was an immensely rewarding job and I believe {with affirmation from both parents and colleagues} that I was able to do that job very successfully. I hope to continue this vocation through Positive Supports for Parents.