"The greatest test of Ellen's approaches came in 2004, when Justin's aunt left him with her. What turned into a request that he stay for just a weekend, became a total abandonment."

Ellen is a single parent with two sons, Richard and Adam, ages 19 and 22 as well as two "adopted" young adults, a young man, Justin, 24 and young woman, Gina age 32. As the oldest of six children born in seven years, she assisted the raising of her siblings from a very young age. Ellen was so much their surrogate mother that when she went off to college at age 18, her parents blamed her for the family falling apart and their children falling into drugs and rebellion.

Ellen obtained a B.S. in psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle, worked for 10 years in nursing before going to law school. She has done a great deal of volunteer work with young people and continued to study child development. In all of her work with young people, she saw how we as a culture were failing our young people miserably.

As she began to help friends and family with creating independence in their teens and college age students, it became apparent that parents needed new tools and new ways of dealing with the parenting of young adult children. The greatest test of Ellen's approaches came in 2004, when Justin's aunt left him with her. What turned into a request that he stay for just a weekend became a total abandonment.

Justin's single alcoholic mother lived in the Midwest and had never taught him many life skills needed to succeed. She was also unavailable and unwilling to assist in helping Justin, as was his aunt. In short, Ellen was told to throw him out of her house if that's what it took. Justin was only 19 and as result of learning disabilities, personal insecurities, and growing up in an alcoholic home, he had never gotten a driver's license, only worked part time, and was socially shy. After just six months of coaching, Justin had succeeded in obtaining a driver's license and had landed a full time job. Later on, he was successful in creating a pet and house sitting business. He was also coached in areas of other important life skills such as  purchasing a car, securing car insurance, budgeting his money, renting a place of his own, paying bills on time, and managing a credit card. In a short period of time, he had developed enough self confidence to create his own social niche and to begin to truly enjoy his life.

She has since set out to help parents navigate not only how to provide adult skill sets but to better parent in these early adult years so that we all experience the warm and rewarding adult-to-adult relationship we want with our children.