By Sara Ballenger

Jennifer Hurwick, a special education teacher, and Lisa Sieber, a mental health counselor, have made helping children their life’s work. So it seemed only natural when the two women began their own business last month, centered around youth in need.

Student Support Strategies in Los Altos offers families and schools a variety of educational and counseling services tailored to each individual student or family.

After an initial assessment of the student and their family, the staff at SSS develop a plan of services for the student and appoint a case manager who will make site visits to the student’s school.

The case manager can then provide the student with counseling, emotional and educational support as well as diagnosis and treatment for academic issues, behavioral problems, attention deficit disorder and other learning disabilities, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety or drug and alcohol abuse.

“I didn’t want just any job,” said Hurwick, who left a teaching position at the Santa Clara County Children’s Shelter for abused and neglected children to start SSS. “We want to help kids in any way we can. We will assess what their needs are going to be and work with them, as well as interact with the student’s school, similar to a resource specialist.”

Hurwick and Sieber’s philosophy is love. “Everyone can use one more person in life that shows they care,” said Sieber, who has been working with “at-risk” teens in the area for the last five years.

“We absolutely will look at the whole person, physically, mentally and emotionally, and make the appropriate referrals. We would like to work with the schools with the process of helping families with the services they are entitled to,” she said.

Aside from referrals, SSS offers psychological and educational testing, group therapy, communication skills development, self-esteem enhancement, mentoring and tutoring.

For upcoming second-grader Alexes Zannini of Sunnyvale, tutoring at SSS twice a week for the last month has made a noticeable difference.

“Alexes doesn’t have a defined problem. She got a delayed start in reading,” said her mother, Sheila. “She had a problem with comprehension and grasping the main idea. They went through the first grade again, so by second grade she will be on target with the second-grade class.”

The hard work is paying off. Sheila recently took Alexes to the library, where she picked out books to read.

“She picked out her books by the title. Three months ago she would have picked them out by the picture,” Sheila said.

Alexes is starting to develop a love of reading. “I didn’t like reading. The words were too hard for me to sound out,” she said. “Now I like reading to my mom and my friend. I think I am going to be the best student of reading.”

Hurwick and Sieber try to make learning fun. “It’s so important with children to do high-interest activities where you are still teaching. The children learn without realizing it,” Hurwick said.

For more information, call 964-7172.