Life Conversations with a Twist
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Life Conversations with a Twist
Learning Differently: Insider Secrets to Effective Special Education Support with Annalise Puentes and Bethany Deniz
"It's not just about accessing education—parents want more than that for their kids. A lot of times, they want to know what can make their children thrive." —Bethany Deniz
"There was just this big web, and we lost a year to two years with kids missing intervention. And what we know developmentally is that kids need it early, and they need it often." —Annalise Puentes
Learning differences are not roadblocks but pathways to extraordinary understanding and growth. When we shift from seeing challenges as limitations to viewing them as opportunities, we unlock a child's true capacity for brilliance.
Bethany Deniz and Annalise Puentes are school psychologists turned entrepreneurs who have dedicated their careers to transforming how families and educators approach learning differences. With over a decade of experience in public education and private practice, they specialize in comprehensive psychological assessments and empowerment strategies for children and families.
Tune in as Heather, Annalise, and Bethany explore the transformative power of understanding learning differences, common special education challenges, the impact of technology on neurodivergent children, early intervention strategies, parental advocacy, and creating supportive educational environments that celebrate each child's unique cognitive profile.
Connect with Heather:
Episode Highlights:
01:32 Bethany and Annalise: Forming a Business Partnership
07:42 Transitioning to Private Practice
12:41 Services Offered
16:30 Challenges in the Education System
26:39 The Impact of Tech on Children with ADHD
31:53 Advocating for Children with Disabilities
34:26 The Importance of Social Connectedness
Connect with Annalise and Bethany:
Annalise Puentes is a Licensed Educational Psychologist with a passion for empowering students, educators, and families. As a practicing Educational Psychologist in Sonoma County, her focus has been in psychoeducational assessments, behavior support, and staff training. She has worked with a wide range of students from preschool through age 22 in the public, non-public, and private school settings.
Email: annalise@empoweredpsychservices.com
Bethany Deniz is a Licensed Educational Psychologist dedicated to supporting the academic and emotional growth of students. Bethany has a breadth of experience in private, non-public, and public school settings, as well as private practice in assessing students with learning, developmental, and social-emotional disabilities. Her expertise is in identifying specific learning disabilities, consultations, and training with parents and staff.
Email: bethany@empoweredpsychservices.com
Connect with EmpowerED Educational Psychology Services:
Heather Nelson: Hello everyone, welcome to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I am very excited to have Bethany and Annalise, did I say it right? I feel like everyone pronounces things differently. I probably should have asked ahead of time. We actually just physically met, but we've been in conversations for two years now, and I'm so glad that you are finally on the podcast. Our really good friend of mine, Sara Clark, always connects me to amazing women. And so that was our first conversation, and then we just realized that we're working together with Common Ground Society. And so I just love how the community is like a full circle here, and how we're all connected in some cool way. So welcome to the podcast.
Annalise Puentes: Thank you.
Bethany Deniz: Happy to be here.
Heather Nelson: Yeah, especially on a Friday afternoon, right? This will be released in a couple weeks. But for us, it's Friday. So tell me a little bit about this, this is my first podcast with two guests, so this is really exciting. But maybe if you guys want to each take a couple of minutes and talk about who you are, what you do, and we'll dive into what you guys are doing now.
Bethany Deniz: Sure. I can start. I am a lifelong Sonoma County resident, minus my college years. So I grew up as the daughter of two school teachers, public school teachers. My parents spent their full career in Santa Rosa city schools, and that actually ended up being my first job as a psychologist. I was working for that district, so very full circle. But I grew up in Sonoma County, went to college at UC Davis, and then found my way back here. I explored careers in clinical psychology. I thought that was the direction I wanted to go, but then became really fascinated with how children learn, how they think, and how we can help them in school. And so kind of steered in a different direction and went to the school psychology route. And then that's how I came back to Sonoma County. I worked in Santa Rosa for a few years, and then ended up in Windsor where I met my work wife, bestie over here, Annalise. It's been an amazing friendship and work relationship ever since.
Heather Nelson: I love that.
Annalise Puentes: What I think when you were saying like, oh, this is the first time you've ever had two guests at the one time, that feels very on brand for us. We do everything together. There's no chance this business was going to happen without us together.
Heather Nelson: I would love to even just chat about working together. Because I see so many people, I see a lot of podcasters who are like, oh, we're going to start a podcast together. And a lot of times, it doesn't end up happening. Or people are like, we're going to start a business together, and it's great for a couple years, and then it's hard. So just even the dynamics of doing business together with somebody else, I'm always thriving off of it. Because I'm like, I really wish I had a partner to just bounce ideas off of, and so I always look up to the people who have a partner to help them. So Annalise, what is your background?
Annalise Puentes: Being in partnership is my favorite thing. And I wouldn't do it any other way, which is great. But I'm actually originally from San Jose. I'm South Bay, and then went to undergrad in San Diego and graduate school in Orange County. My husband is a clinical psychologist with a focus in sport and performance, so we were both in grad school at the same time. He got an internship in Indiana. We lived in Indiana for a few years, which surprisingly was amazing. Rural Indiana is one of my favorite places. Then I was like, it's too cold. We gotta go back to California. So then we were looking for jobs, and it just happened that he got a spot in Sonoma County. And I was like, Santa Rosa. I've never heard of it, and we've been here for 12 years. We looked at it. I don't think we could ever leave. And I started working in Windsor, and that's when we met. It's about 2013 or 2012 when we met and started working at the same time. And I got two kids at home, a 10 and a 7 year old. And like I said, my husband's a clinical psychologist, so we always joke that you should hear us fight like it's never angry. It's like, well, how are you feeling? Really underneath that. That was a fun time for therapy for our children.
Heather Nelson: That is so funny. My husband and I struggle with communication. Sometimes, I just want to talk about problems. And he's like, yeah, no. So we just had this conversation last night, so it's funny.
Annalise Puentes: Yeah, very precious.
Heather Nelson: I love that. Bethany, do you have children?
Bethany Deniz: Yes, I do. I didn't mention them. Also 10 and 7. We say we do all the things together, the babies are part of it. We met on the first day of district training when we started in Windsor at the same time. And I remember that very first day, we kind of had this little chat of like, oh, do you have kids? No, do you? And then I'm like, oh, maybe in about a year. And she said the same thing. Our first babies are like 10 days apart. And by coincidence, our second is just a few months apart. So we have kind of these bestie relationships for our kids too, and they've sort of grown up side by side. We have a work partnership, and we have the friendship, and then our families have the connection. And I think that's really invaluable. I know a lot of people question that like, how could you go into business with your friend? And even my husband who runs a business wasn't quite sure about it. And I think what makes it work? I mean, multiple things. But one thing is, we've always been work colleagues, so we became friends as we were building our relationship as colleagues. And we work together in Windsor really closely. We work together with the district to bring a more research based, progressive method for assessing learning disabilities. And then that led us to going together and training local districts. So we've always had this collaboration between the colleague and the friendship piece. And we're kind of like opposites in a lot of ways, and it just works really well for us. What I'm strong in are things that Annalise is weak in. And when I'm weak in, there are things that she's strong in. And we just support each other that way.
Heather Nelson: I love that. My kids are in the Windsor district. Actually, my ex lives in Windsor. And so when we split, I moved to Rohnert Park, which is where my family grew up. And so my kids stayed in the Windsor district. And me and my husband, we just moved to Windsor in July, and so I'm just so excited to be in Windsor now and not have to commute every single day, for sure. But it's such a great school district. I have a 14 year old that's about to go into high school, and then I have a son that's about to go into middle school, so big transition stages. And then we're in the application process to get into Cali for my three and a half year old, so I'm really hoping we get to get into that school.
Annalise Puentes: We've worked at all of those schools. We were there for 10 years. Windsor has the most special place in our heart. We love it.
Heather Nelson: I love that. Okay, so I feel good where my kids are. Okay. So what are you guys doing now? Obviously not working for the schools anymore. You guys are doing so much other great work. Tell us a little bit about how this company got started, and what you guys are doing? And then we'll just dive right in.
Annalise Puentes: 2013 is when the little idea started. It took us that long to kind of figure it out.
Bethany Deniz: It was kind of the spark of the idea of 2013 like, maybe someday, this would be like a dream to have this private practice, and to be able to offer these services. We loved our time in public education, but what we found was that we were running into parents who wanted more. And when you're in the public education system, the assessments that we do are to determine eligibility for special education. They're not to provide a diagnosis. It's really all about, is your student eligible for special education? And if so, what services do they need to access their education? But there's so much nuance in that because it's not just about accessing your education. Parents want more than that for their kids. A lot of times, they want to know what can make their children thrive, not just be able to access education. And there's a lot of uncertainty about where that information comes from. We've seen a lot of parents just seeking that clarity bouncing around to different providers outside of schools, asking schools for more information than it was within their scope, and we really wanted to answer that question. We wanted to provide that clarity for families of how their child thinks, how their child learns, and empower them and their children with tools and support to help improve their self esteem, their academic performance, and their whole self concept.
Annalise Puentes: And I think too that what we were noticing is that there were the precious months and years of this developmental time that we were losing out on, and parents were wasting time, money and resources jumping through hoops. And that's the phrase we kept hearing. It feels like I'm just jumping through hoops. I'm talking to my doctor, I'm talking to the teacher. There was just this big web, and we lost a year to two years with kids of missing intervention. What we know developmentally is that kids need it early, and they need it often. And when you lose that, there was this sense of grief every time that you couldn't give what you wanted to a family or a child. And I think that it really started there. We saw this need. And we said, we can help. We can do something about this.
Heather Nelson: And so do you guys work with families independently, and then do you work with the school districts? Or how do you intertwine all that?
Bethany Deniz: We do a little bit of both. Primarily, we want to support families. So we do private assessments in our offices. And a private assessment is really an opportunity for us to really dig deep and understand how each individual child's brain works, how they think, how they learn, how they process information so that we can provide some targeted individualized recommendations and support. So we do assessment that includes assessment of how kids think about their cognitive intelligence, also their academic skills. And then sometimes, social emotional concerns. And so this allows us, without any of the restrictions in the public school system, to do a really thorough deep dive. And from there, we end up with invaluable information that we can use to provide the recommendations moving forward. As public school employees, we know the value of the public school system. We always are making a point to connect with the educators of our students, of our clients, and observing kids in classrooms. A really important part is actually going into the learning environment seeing what's happening. So that's a bulk of our work is doing assessment pieces. We also do what's called IEEEs, or Individualized Education Eligibility Evaluations, where if a family and a school district are in disagreement regarding an assessment, the family can seek, can request from the district that they fund with an IEEE. So that's basically a third party assessment that comes in. We come in as a neutral party and assess the child, and provide a second opinion essentially. So that's another piece of work that we do, and can be really important because of advocacy for families when they feel like something's just not right and it's not fitting for their children. You want to talk about our other services?
Annalise Puentes: With that assessment to be able to provide a diagnosis, so one of the things that when we were in public schools, we'd say, your kid has a reading disability. They have a specific learning disability. But we weren't saying, yes, they have dyslexia. That was really confusing for families. So we also are able to diagnose. So if you are concerned that your child may have difficulty with reading, writing, math, if we're seeing inattention, impulsivity, so we're looking at ADHD, dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, we're looking at things like autism, developmentally, anxiety, all of those pieces.
So we get to assess all of those areas and give a really clear, definitive diagnosis if that's what's necessary too, which is important. But then the assessment was really important because we could give recommendations. But we also wanted to be able to start offering services, and that's been new for us so we've started offering executive functioning coaching. And if you're not familiar with executive functioning, that is all the things that our prefrontal cortex is doing. So it's the planning, the time management, the impulse control, all of those pieces that are so important in our students' behaviors and our adult behaviors. And a lot of our kiddos, especially with ADHD. But even those that don't have a diagnosable disability struggle with that, and they don't have that practice. So we provide coaching for that in sessions where you are working really hands on with your materials and getting plans in place, which is important, and then really tailored instruction. Over the summer, we're going to provide tutoring, but really targeted academic support to prevent that summer slide, and to prevent any kind of regression. But also, if we need a skill like it has some gaps and some skills, we have a great teacher that is able to provide that nearly individualized and in a small group space. So it's not only doing the assessment part, but then offering, here are the things that we can provide for you so we can see that progress.
Heather Nelson: I love that. So basically, families come to you, you get diagnosed. And then now they know what tools they can use, what resources they have. How do they work with their teachers to make sure that their children are getting the full learning experience that they should?
Bethany Deniz: Yeah, absolutely. And some parts that are really important about our assessment piece are the levels of feedback that we give. So we give feedback about our assessments to parents. They'll be provided with a complete report, but we always do like a little one page snapshot report so it's a little bit more digestible. But we provide in depth feedback with the parents, but then we also offer feedback with the student or the child. And so this is really helpful because a lot of kids are just left out of their own narrative on what's going on. And so then, they're left to turn inward. And often it's, I can't learn. I'm not smart. I can't do this. And then they start or disengage from school, and it filters into other areas of their lives. So we like to meet with kids at the beginning of our assessment. We talk to kids about how brains work and how we think so they can have an idea. And then when we're done, we meet with them again, and we talk about what we found. We talk about the areas of strengths, and we talk about the areas of challenge. We use a framework developed by Dr. Liz Angoff that says a lot of it is a metaphor of your highways or the areas of your brain where things are working really well. And then the construction zones are the areas where we have a little bit of our challenge. And then we develop with them a list of tools and strategies that they feel really empowered about how they can move forward. They understand that they are intelligent, they have many strengths, and there's just some specific areas of weakness that we can target. So that's a really important piece, and that's something we didn't really get to do in the school system in the same way. And then the other layer is that we also provide a feedback session with school staff. So we will meet with your child's school and go over the results of the assessment in an understandable way, review recommendations and things like that. So that's kind of the idea in the whole name of our business, EmpowerED. It's really to empower families, students and educators to understand how kids think, and how we can help them.
Heather Nelson: I love that word. I am doing a women's retreat, it's called Empower Your Path. I love that word so much, and I use it everyday. What percentage of kids do you think have learning disabilities?
Annalise Puentes: This is always interesting. Because from the special education side, the public education, really the idea of a disability is based on, do they require special education services? So you will see anywhere from like 12 to 15% of the population in California, some is a little bit more, some little bit less have received special education services. And that can be for something like a learning disability, for something like autism, or deaf, or hard of hearing. There's a large range. But what we know is that there's actually quite a lot more that don't come through that system, right? That doesn't come through that process. I don't have the specific percentage off hand, but I know that it's much more than that. And what we're realizing is that kids that are incredibly smart, they end up making up these different ways to learn when it's really hard for them in a traditional way, so they kind of make up for that. So what we have found is that kids are kind of hanging on when we start doing an assessment, we start seeing, oh, we get why this is really hard for you. You actually have dyslexia. And the validation that they feel talking about those kid feedback meetings is my favorite part of the job. Because to be able to sit across the kid table with the kid and say, hey, I see how hard this has been. This is what this is, and you're not alone. Let me tell you that all the people that have done such great things and have experienced this to see that wave of relief is life changing and talk about, my job's done here. I'm happy.
Heather Nelson: I love the approach that you're making it okay to have a disability. And I just had Larkin on from Common Ground Society a couple weeks ago, and this is what we're talking about. She's like, even if you're wearing glasses or you wear contacts, that's a disability. There's so many of the common things that people don't think about and how do you normalize that? And I love that that is the approach that you take. And I'm like, just because you're not good at one thing doesn't mean you can't excel at something else. And so I love that you guys are, especially with children, making that okay and not letting them feel like there's something wrong with them.
Bethany Deniz: I think it's really important because, like I was saying, before kids start to tell themselves and create stories, they know something's different. And if somebody doesn't empower them with accurate information, specific truthful information, they're going to fill in the gaps. And it's going to be things that are, I'm bad, there's something wrong with me, I'm not smart, and they start limiting themselves from even trying. So that's why it's really important to give the kids some power back and understand themselves.
Heather Nelson: I love that. What do you guys' feedback as to what you can say about how our education system is broken? That's the common thing right now, right? Is there anything in certain schools that you're seeing that are working? What are your guys' opinions? Larkin's like, we just need to crash it all down and start over. That is not as easy to do. But what is your business take on how education is right now, currently, in our current system.
Annalise Puentes: One thing, we love Larkin's episode, by the way. We are big, huge Larkin's fans. And I will say one thing that I loved. We were collaborating on something, and she had talked about how we talk about things like special needs. And no, no, these are all just needs. We all have needs, and we get them met in different ways. And that changed my perspective. After being in special education for years, I was like, that's right. We all have the need to see. Sometimes, that means glasses. Sometimes, that means context. So anyway, I just love that part.
Heather Nelson: And I love her too, by the way. I'm trying not to do events anymore, and she was like, can you please help me with the gala? And I was like, okay, for you.
Annalise Puentes: The state of education, that's funny. Because I was just looking at my phone and the news, which was my first mistake. To see how they're dismantling the Department of Education at the federal level right now, I think the state of education is in a space of a lot of fear not knowing and all of that. So my take on it is we are struggling to come to grips with a new reality. We're struggling to come to grips with who the students are that come through our doors, also who the teachers are that are coming through our doors, and the specialists, and the needs and that is causing a lot of friction. It's madness, is what it is. Keeping me up at night is what the issue is. I mean, what do you think?
Bethany Deniz: And I think school education is different than it was when we first entered the field and worked in schools almost 15 years ago. It's different, I guess, from more than 15 years ago. Kids are different. Especially coming out of COVID, I think that's been hard because teachers are not given more recent resources when kids are coming with more challenging behavior. So it's just kind of like trying to deal, struggling with what we have. I think a lot of times, special education becomes like the intervention, like this is what we have to offer, and that's not necessarily appropriate for everybody. I think moving forward, the biggest thing I would love to change is really seeing more of that intervention and support happening from the ground floor early on outside of special education to prevent the need on that kind of level. But of course, as Annalise was saying, from the federal level, everything is very shaky. The foundation is shaky. It's concerning, and so it does feel very kind of precarious right now. And I think we just have to wait or watch how things play out. And of course,contact your senators, and definitely voice your opinion. But it's a tough time for public education, for sure, especially in our county right now.
Heather Nelson: I was gonna say, how not knowing the structure of like, okay, now there's this federal thing that's happening right now. And then, how does that trickle down to a county level? Once something happens, how long does it take to happen at a county level? Or is it, once it's messed up, everything's messed up?
Annalise Puentes: So I think what we look at is that it will take time. And because all these changes are happening, and then injunctions are going to happen, and things are going to stop, and we just don't know. So what typically is the biggest issue and the biggest concern, I think, for most public schools is going to be the funding. Now, the issue is this is going to be dependent on whatever happens up there while they are promising to maintain the funding as it is for certain programs like special education, like the student loan support and all that. The question is, will they have the manpower to be able to distribute those funds? And ultimately, will those funds change? So the second funds change, that's where things are going to be most impacted in the immediate way because we don't have any indication if that's going to happen today, tomorrow, two years from now. We're all just standing still.
Bethany Deniz: And I think the other issue is that, especially thinking about special education, that all comes from a federal mandate. And so that kind of assurance that students are going to be accepted and served appropriately all comes from a federal mandate, from IDEA, that's Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And because that's a federal service, or a federal mandate, the concern is, if that goes away, that is going to reduce the rights of students with disabilities. If we're just leaning that up to states, are states then going to have the option to not serve these students? And that's, I think, really scary for anybody who's a part of the disability community, or who works with the students that receive special education support.
Annalise Puentes: And particularly for those companies that have children with IEP, this is the scary, unknowing part. If you have a child with a disability, that's hard. And now I think that I'm going to have to go against the government, or go against these federal things, let alone that's going to change in my day to day. It's so overwhelming. I see that in families, you're feeling the spiral. And so the question is, what do you do? What do you do when things get this bad? I always think, okay, remember where we are. Because if we stop what we're doing and look around in the immediate right, what is your kid doing in their class in a day to day situation? How was your relationship with that teacher? That's the thing that matters most. Everything will come and go. How is it in the classroom? How is it going at school? So whenever I start getting really overwhelmed is when I start trying to volunteer my kids' class more. I'll send an email just to say, hey, I appreciate you. As a front office staff, I try to do the little things to maintain the village of where my kids are.
Heather Nelson: Such a scary time right now.
Annalise Puentes: Yeah. Also, you had asked, well, are you seeing things that work? What do you say? Yes. 1,000% yes. Because if you've seen a great educator, you're like, well, the world is going to be okay. If you walk into a classroom and they have some lights out teacher, you're like, that's fine, the world's going to be okay. Everything's all right. Because it is amazing when it happens. And I often see it in relationships. When teachers create relationships with children, it is a beautiful thing. And watching some of the inclusion that's happening across the county needs a lot more, but seeing some of that has been really beautiful as well. There are places and people that still are so passionate about it, and it's hopeful still.
Heather Nelson: These poor teachers, they're doing such an amazing thing that, I mean, it's the most special job that is out there, I believe. And they get paid nothing. But the fact that they still continue to show up even in those situations, to me, is worth it all. I love our teachers. I think all of you, all the work you're doing with our kids is so amazing, so kudos to you guys.
Annalise Puentes: Yeah. Shout out to the educators.
Heather Nelson: What are your thoughts? I hear this from a lot of people, especially with kids with ADHD, about technology and how technology can affect that. What are you guys' thoughts or experiences in that? I got so many thoughts on that.
Bethany Deniz: I think parents, there's observable impacts of technology on kids with ADHD. Some kids can handle a little bit more screen time. Some kids can't handle any screen time. The issue with screen time is really like, you have these images and things coming at you so quickly, and your brain starts to get used to that level of stimulation and crave it more. And when you have ADHD, you have some challenges in the frontal lobe part of your brain with shutting those things off, staying focused. And then when your child watches a lot of screen time, it's working against that system, or just stimulating more and more. They're craving more stimulation. That said, every kid is different. Some kids can handle some screen time, and others cannot. And some can handle it when they're a little bit older, and maybe not when they're younger. So it is individualized. In general, a ton of screen time would not be a recommendation for a kiddo with ADHD. But I think you kind of have to zoom out and really observe the child. If you're noticing that your child is extra irritable, extra hyperactive, has a really hard time letting go of the technology when the time is up or things like that, those can all be signs that it's not working in their favor.
Annalise Puentes: When we're looking at recommendations and families work, we're asking families what is the routine. How long and where are these screens happening? Because raise your hand if you've used a screen as a babysitter. That is life. There are also parts where some days you're going to have more, and we have to deal with the consequences of it. But as a whole, just like Bethany was saying, we know the impact that it has on growing brains. So things we recommend around it is a lot of just monitoring. So sitting down with your kid and watching the same content they're watching. The big part that I'm worried about too is what they're being exposed to. And so to be able to sit down and watch it, and then have conversations about what we're talking about is priceless. Now, I don't know how much Bluey or Octonauts you want to watch, but it's really important in the beginning to start that relationship with screens. But then this is the part that's the worst. And I hate this part. We have to be modeling good relationships with screens, and that is the worst. It's so embarrassing when your kid is like, but Mom, you're looking at your phone. And I'm like, I'm working on email. I'm working. So I think this is not just a kid issue. Our kids' brains are so much more susceptible. We need to guard and protect them a little bit more.
Bethany Deniz: Yeah. And I think that what Annalise was saying with the quality of screen time and the interaction is really important. So in general, I think long form media like shows, movies are better than YouTube where you're seeing all these multiple clips just cycle through. A family movie night is a lot different than two hours on YouTube unassisted or unattended. You don't have to eliminate screens completely for most kids. But if you can make it more of a social thing that your family does, maybe there's a certain sport that you can watch together. Maybe you have a Friday movie night. You're interacting about it, you're talking, you're communicating. It's a very different experience than a child being on a single device on their own without any supervision. Fortunately, I don't think the answer is no screen time ever. I don't think that's realistic for most families. But again, that's why we talked to families on what their routine is. What's workable for them? Maybe a kid being on a screen by themselves has to happen in order for mom or dad to get their work done. And that's okay. How can we work with that in order to be as least impactful as possible?
Heather Nelson: Just shared this meme and it was like, you grew up in like the 90s or whatever when there was no TV and you could only watch like two channels, and it was on Saturday morning was the only time cartoons came on.
Annalise Puentes: I miss that.
Bethany Deniz: There's endless options for kids now, and some of that is good because there is some good quality content. But also, it needs to be monitored, for sure.
Annalise Puentes: And you can edit this part out if this doesn't feel appropriate. But the other thing is to be talking about the content of what we're watching. Because you think that your child is not exposed to pornographic images? They are at a super young age. So that's the other thing that I really, really encourage parents. NPR did a great thing on this a while back about how to talk to your kids about the images that they're seeing, the scary stuff, the sexual stuff? Because if we're not talking about it, they create narratives about it, and then that's where things get weird. They'll be exposed to everything. How do we talk about it, and navigate it? And we consult with families about that too. We'll get on the phone and say, hey, how do you navigate this hard conversation? Sometimes, you just need some parenting support that can be a part of this too. I would never delete that, because that is so important.
Heather Nelson: Great advice. I know some school districts and some schools do better with providing a better education for children with disabilities. What do you say to that parent who might have a child with a disability and their school system isn't supporting them, continuing to advocate for them? What advice do you have for that parent? I know some who've left districts because of it.
Annalise Puentes: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And we've been on both sides of that table of being on the district side, and then being on the parent side. It feels like we don't want to have sides. The first thing is, call us. And that sounds silly, but we just want to make sure you're connected to the right people. You have so many resources in Sonoma County. The first being your SELPA, which is your Special Education Local Planning Area. SELPA, they have something called Alternative Dispute Resolution, ADR, that is a free service to every family that's going through the IEP process that allows someone to come in as an independent person to help you mediate with the district and you. And it's not, oh, I'm advocating for you, and we're going to come in guns blazing. It is a great first step, and it's free, so that's what I recommend. The first thing to do, get some outside perspective and some support, because I think that can really change how you see the world.
Bethany Deniz: It's also really important that parents know their rights. So when you are a parent of a child either being assessed or in special education, you'll get a packet every time you meet with your parent. I don't know how often those actually get read. They're very boring, but there's important information in there. We actually have an Instagram post on our account this week about the importance of knowing your rights. So read through those rights to really understand it. And if you need help understanding it, again, we always do parent consultations. We do free 30 minute consultations for parents. And then we can do parent consultation advocacy beyond that. We can also support and advocate in a really balanced way. So our advocacy and support is never, the district is the bad guy, or the parent is the bad guy. It's kind of really taking that kind of neutral third party approach. Again, those IEEs, those Independent Eligibility Evaluations that I talked about are another great way to get a neutral third party perspective on what's going on. And so definitely, reach out. Reach out. We will be happy to connect with you even if it's just like the free 30 minute call. We want parents to feel empowered, to feel like they have the tools. There are some great free resources available. The ADR program is fabulous. So it doesn't necessarily have to be an expensive process, but it should be an educated process. The other thing is that Common Ground Society offers an IEP study wall for parents, and it's typically the third Friday of every month from 9 to 12. One of us or another psychologist who works for us will be there also every Friday. Or every Friday, they have the session, and there'll be other local experts that are there. You can bring in your child's IEP, bring in the report, bring in your documents, bring in just your questions and sit around a table, and we can help you advocate and determine the best course of action. So that's another free opportunity for parents to get support.
Heather Nelson: In general, if you're starting a business, or you're going through different things, our community has so many resources that people don't even know about. It's insane. And wonderful groups like YOU who are doing these things and supporting them when it becomes overwhelming, it's so nice to know that you are supported in whatever you're going through. Is there anything we didn't talk about? I know we asked, we kind of went all over the place, but anything like that. The work that you guys do, things that you've learned along the way that you think would help other parents kind of going through the same thing?
Annalise Puentes: Well, you said something like, there is this idea of not doing this alone, because it is so overwhelming, right? Parenting alone, working mom alone, right? There is a reason I don't do anything without Bethany. Find you a Bethany, that's number one. There is something in the village, in partnership and community that is powerful and life-giving. If we get really nerdy and into the research, it talks about how social connectedness is one of the biggest resiliency factors. And not only our children, but adults. And so I think the biggest takeaway is to find your people. And if you don't have them, come to us, and we'll help you find your people. It's really getting that village together, I think, is so huge.
Bethany Deniz: And just for parents to know that there's a lot of resources out there. If you're challenged with a child that you feel like you're not quite understanding how to support them, and that's such a hard feeling as a parent not knowing the best way to connect and support your child, or your child is really struggling, there are other services that can really help you dig deeper, and can help get to the bottom of what's going on with your child. And I think that just knowing that as a parent is a really helpful thing, because it's a really dark, lonely place to know that your child is struggling in school and not know where to turn.
Heather Nelson: Yeah, so good. Where can everyone find you?
Bethany Deniz: Yeah. You can follow us on Instagram at EmpowerED Psych we also have a Facebook account, that's also EmpowerED Psych Services. Our website is www.empoweredpsychservices.com. We'd love to hear from anybody who wants to connect or needs some support. We're here for you.
Heather Nelson: Thank you so much for what you're doing on behalf of all the other parents out there that are having to go through these things with their children, just knowing that there's support and resources out there. So thank you for the work you're doing, and I'm so glad that we met, especially before this gala.
Annalise Puentes: Yeah, I'm excited to get all dressed up and celebrate Common Ground.
Heather Nelson: I say that Larkin's going to roll the world someday. And I'm like, I want to be your person, your wingman, being your cheerleader when you're on stage. She's doing some great things.
Annalise Puentes: I will do whatever job she needs me to do. I will be the cup bearer or whatever, as long as she's rolling the world where I'm happy.
Heather Nelson: I love it. Well, it's so nice meeting you both, and we'll see you in a couple weeks at the gala.