In 2001 Dore Frances created Horizon Family Solutions, LLC (H.F.S.) with the intention to help and educate parents during a time of crisis with their teenager. This year Horizon Family Solutions is celebrating over a decade of assisting families.
During these ten years, Dore Frances has been asked for her opinion by Seventeen Magazine and interviewed by The Monterey Herald in California.
She also spoke at the Boise High school in Idaho about the dangers of drugs and answered some very tough questions from both parents and teens.
Not seeking publicity Dore Frances has shared information with attorneys, counselors, doctors, families, health care providers, and other professionals through her two newsletters and the most recent addition of RMG Teen Alerts.
She also has several e-Book publications in process that will help families in crisis who are needing to make a placement decision and are not able to travel ahead of time.
Recently Dore Frances was accepted into the American Evaluation Association (A.E.A.) and will be conducting in-depth evaluations of programs and schools that are assisting families in raising today’s teens. Frances knows personally the anguish parent’s experience when their home is being invaded by an out of control teen, who themselves is in crisis. She too choose to place her own daughter in a residential therapeutic treatment center over 10 year ago.
Neither she nor her daughter have any regrets. Since that time Dore Frances has learned a lot about the benefits and concerns of programs and schools that have invaded the Internet. It is always painful when needing to make a decision about placing your child in the care of others, usually far from home.
You want a quick fix, and have your child reunited with you as soon as possible. However, it does take time. The crisis did not happen overnight and you will not come back from it overnight. Dore Frances knows first hand that there are excellent addiction treatment centers, clinical programs, eating disorder programs, learning disability schools, residential treatment centers and wilderness programs all across the United States.
She has visited hundreds of programs and schools in Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho and many other states. It is more important than ever that these programs and schools do the very best they can in the areas they specialize in and that parents, as well as programs, remember that one size does not fit all. Over the years Dore Frances has assisted attorneys with keeping children out of juvenile hall, has helped counselors who refer to her when they realize the teen is past a weekly counseling visit and in more crisis that they can help with, has spoken with doctors about the best referrals for children, teens and young adults and has taught parenting classes in California, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.
With today’s ever expanding world of technology, many parents go to the Internet looking for help.
In doing so parents are flooded with promises from beautiful websites as well as well-trained commission paid sales tele-marketers who all want the family’s money with little concern for the child. Frances realizes from her own investigative experiences of visiting programs and schools that the fantastic websites on the Internet are not always the same as what you see when you step onto their front porch.
“Website fact verses Website fiction is time-consuming and expensive to determine” Frances says. “This is why these in-depth Evaluations have proven to be priceless to a family in crisis. I have created a useful tool for parents and professionals who cannot travel all over the country and spend a day or two at every program. These 30+ page Evaluations will be published with an approved rating system from the AEA, and will help many who are needing to make a placement decision for a child, teen or young adult.”
Dore Frances continues her Advocacy and Independent Educational Consulting work and strives to educate parents and professionals about what tools are valuable in selecting a program and what websites may be deceiving in their marketing efforts to lure in a parent in crisis and convince them that they need to make a quick decision to send their child to them or their child may die. These destructive marketing practices are dangerous.
To learn more about Dore Frances or when you are searching for an addiction treatment program, residential therapeutic boarding school, eating disorder program, wilderness program or need a school for your child who is struggling with a learning disability visit www.Horizonfamilysolutions.com for more information.
Dore E. Frances, Ph.D. began her small independent therapeutic consulting practice as an Advocate in Pacific Grove, California in 1988. In her work as an Advocate, she became familiar with the processes and strategies families develop to find appropriate educational matches for their children. In the course of her work, she also became aware that these inherent family strategies and processes do not always work the same way for every family.
In order to better understand adolescent development, family development, family dynamics, programs, schools and students, Dore received a masters degree in Child and Family Studies.
This provided the framework for her previous experience in advocacy work and independent educational / therapeutic assistance and inspired her to expand her personal Independent Educational / Therapeutic Consulting practice with an office in Pacific Grove, California. Simultaneously she worked in the grief counseling field assisting children and families through the trauma of loss.
She remained in this work at The Hospice of Monterey until 2003, when she moved to Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, maintaining an independent office there.
Dore then moved to Bend, Oregon in 2004 where she is currently a member of Advocates for Children of Trauma, the American Bar Association as an Advocate, a member of Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a member of The National Association of Parents with Children in Special Education and an associate member of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs.
Between 2005 and 2008 Dore also volunteered with CASA of Deschutes County.
Dore previously served as the Executive Director for the non-profit Positive Directions Foundation in Santa Cruz, California, a whole child and family approach offering workshops to communities and schools focusing on such areas of concern as alcohol and drug addiction in teens, pathways to positive directions for youth, reducing bullying behaviors, teen pregnancy, and teen and family relationships.
Dr. Frances has a Masters Degree in Child & Family Studies and a Doctorate of Applied Human Development in Child and Family Development with an emphasis in Diverse Families and a minor in Child Advocacy.
Dr. Frances provides a professional relationship for all of her clients with a compassionate and sensitive commitment to each unique individual.