Professional Occupational Development

WHY CHOOSE OUR SERVICES? 

*please scroll to the bottom of this page if you would like a more detailed explaination with references on why each service is important 

OBSTACLES FOR PARENTS AND STUDENTS

**Attending College/University is extremely expensive 

**Despite working hard to gain knowledge needed for college success, due to the well intentioned established system most high school students are unintentially woefully unprepared when it comes to the soft skills or traits (such as stress and time management, resourcefulness, and accountability) needed for college success 

**College/University graduation rates are not good (scroll to bottom for more detailed information and references) 

RESULTS

**Literally millions of parents and students have wasted thousands of dollars and hours on goals and dreams that are unfortunately not reached

WHAT WE PROVIDE 

**Online workshops to help high school students develop the soft skills/traits needed for collegiate success 

**Online training to prepare high school students with disabilities and their parents for the vast differences in how colleges approach accommodations and how to prepare for and navigate their oftentimes confusing systems.

**Career counseling that takes into account interests, strengths, weaknesses, economic outlook, and that teaches you how to continue to explore these items on your own.  

**An increase in odds of college graduation and that your thousands of dollars and years of effort towards collegiate/university success are well spent

Helping Students With Disabilities

For reasons NOT due to their disabilities the vast majority of students with disabilities do not graduate from college or universities and are much less likely to have a degree than people without a disability.** Due to the major differences in high school and college, most students with disabilities aren’t prepared with the necessary soft skills and appropriate accommodations to give them their best chances of success.

We want to greatly increase your student’s possibilities of success with a training and consultation that provides education on the differences between high school and college (with a focus on disabilities and accommodations), how to prepare for Disability Resource Center interactions (including how to ask for accommodations and other important questions), that provides some very useful tips for student preparation and more.  We believe in the saying, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”.  So, we don’t believe we are exaggerating when we say that for some our training and consultation can literally make the difference between postsecondary success and failure and thereby potentially save you thousands of dollars. 

Please, schedule a training/consultation so we can work together toward your student’s educational goals. Please note that only the parent(s) or guardian and the student are allowed to attend the training.  Any other arrangement can be discussed for a separate session.  Also, please note that I do not recommend postsecondary accommodations.  However, if that is a need I may review some resources for ideas.  If someone needs an accommodation for the training, please inform us prior to the training,  Thank you.  We look forward to meeting with you!

“The Low Number Of Students With Disabilities Graduating From College Is A Crisis”Jackie Mader and Sarah Butrymowicz — The Hechinger Report, 11/15/2017; Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, People with a disability less likely to have completed a bachelor's degree at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/people-with-a-disability-less-likely-to-have-completed-a-bachelors-degree.htm (visited March 02, 2023)

10 PERSONALITY TRAITS WORKSHOP FOR STUDENTS

Soft skills (like communication, time management, etc.) are crucial to a student’s educational success.  Only 41% of students graduate from college in 4 years.  Less than 60% graduate within 6 years and just 36% earn 2 year Degree within 3 years.**  Considering the extreme cost of a college education, those numbers are scary.   No one wants to waste thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.  Most states, colleges, and anyone involved with education has recognized improvement is needed.  Over the past 15+ years most states have implemented Transition Programs which focus on getting students academically ready. However, these programs have not made an impact on graduation rates.*  These programs also didn’t consider student’s soft skills - which are critical to their college success.  College and high school settings are extremely different.  Colleges and Universities, seeing that students were struggling with the soft and other skills needed for their settings created Bridge Programs (usually the summer before the starting semester) and/or have college courses to teach incoming students these types of skills.  While I am sure many students have gotten some good use out of these courses, these too, on average, have not improved graduation rates.  There’s no official explanation why these haven’t helped more - but, I have a guess which I think you will agree makes sense.

Trying to get students to learn and implement soft skills and habits such as communicating assertively (not passively/not aggressively), stress management, self advocacy, and/or time management while they are starting college just seems too late!  Developing soft skills takes time and practice. 
Our workshop helps students learn 10 key traits needed for college, learn why they are needed, and how to keep improving upon them after the class so that they will be ready before they start their postsecondary education. We also give several tips for utilizing them in a college/university setting.

So, contact us to register your students for a workshop so we can help them be best prepared for postsecondary success.  

**“What Percent Of College Students Graduate In 4 Years?” Michael Trivette 2/14/2022 as seen at https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-four-year-graduation-rate/ on 3/24/2023    *“High school transition programs have mixed success in improving college readiness” Zeyu Xu, Ben Backes, and Dan Goldhaber 8/31/2021 as seen at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/08/31/high-school-transition-programs-have-mixed-success-in-improving-college-readiness/ on 3/24/2023

CAREER COUNSELING

Why Career Counseling Is Important For High School Students

1. Colleges like to admit students with clear goals and passions.

2. Students with career goals within their first year of college are 50 percent more likely to complete. COMMUNITY COLLEGE COMPLETION STUDY, CCRC.

3. Having a career goal allows a student to get a jump start on their goal while still in high school (prerequisite classes, volunteer work, apprenticeships, etc.). 

4.  For nearly everyone, we will find a goal the student is interested in.  However, people and circumstances change.  The vast majority of the population now changes their career goals several times.  Choosing a career goal early allows the student to explore that goal in depth before going too far down the line.  Since I train the student how to do their own career exploration, they will be able to repeat our exercises as necessary.

Why Choose Robert Sidwell, M.S.Ed., CRC

1.  The opportunity to work with an award winning counselor of twenty-five plus years that loves helping others achieve their goals.

2. We focus on completing career counseling quickly versus other approaches of meeting over several sessions which ends up costing much more.

3. We do not have hidden fees nor extra costs such as tests or assessments which can cost hundreds of dollars.

4. We believe in creating a pleasant experience and simple approach where the student is taught how to explore their interests, explore economic outlook and so forth to promote as much self-sufficiency as possibly so that the student is not completely reliant on our services (which promotes the student's skills and saves you money!).