EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Fireflies Academy’s Executive Director, Lisa Chin Stathoulopoulos
- 11 years’ experience in pioneering & running FirefliesNY (martial arts therapy program for children with autism in NYC)
- Six years as a Self-Contained Special Education Teacher for 6th through 8th grades in Brooklyn, NY
- Four years’ experience as an Independent consultant for ABA (Applied Behavioral Analyst, cleared by NYC)
- One year as Aquatics Director for United Cerebral Palsy of NYC, pioneering and implementing the Aquatics program where she taught individuals to walk in water when they had never walked on land
- Three months as a summer Lindamood Bell Clinician
- Additionally, Lisa brings to the table over eight years of administrative, management, research and development, and training expertise inclusive of the creation and management of the Applications Field Department at LUNAR Corporation and the founding of the Aquatics Program at United Cerebral Palsy
- BBI (Brief Behavioral Intervention training), i.e. abbreviated PCIT (Parent Child Interaction Training) through Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
- Son-Rise Program trained by the Autism Treatment Center of America
- Two years experience homeschooling her own son, Nicholas, who has learned to read, form sentences, eat utilizing utensils and differentiating between utensil versus hand foods; increased articulation; increased listening and attending skills; increased visual attention and tracking skills
- Most important to the founding of Fireflies Academy, Lisa is well versed in seizures, medication administration, managing meltdowns/tantrums, and educating children with special needs. Nicholas, her son, has intractable Epilepsy, Autism, ADHD, Speech Apraxia/Dysarthria, Moderate Intellectual Disability, Hypotonia, Hyper-flexibility of the joints, and Hyper-elasticity of the ligaments. He will be the first student enrolled in Fireflies Academy.