Our Approach

Xcite Steps Mentors

XciteSteps founders Stefan Hochfilzer and Matthew Winkley developed a model for working with youth and adults who experience disabilities. This model uses a mentoring concept and helps XciteSteps’ social coaches facilitate and track growth and success in our participants.

Xcite Steps “Natural Opportunity Model”

When a child, teen or adult enters our program, our director will meet with the parents and if desired any other professionals working with the child to set up an XciteSteps Achievement Plan. This plan details information about the participant, struggles, triggers, goals and objectives we will be working on during involvement in our programs. It will also outline a plan of action put together by our social coaches or mentors who will be working directly with the child, teen or adult.

During our one on one mentoring or San Diego social group activities our social coaches/mentors have these goals in mind when interacting with your child. Since all our programs and services are activity and interaction based, natural opportunities for teaching arise. Our mentors and social coaches look for these teaching opportunities and take advantage of the natural situation to coach, role model or modify behaviors. After each session the mentors document important interactions, improvements, and challenges for each participant and this data gets highlighted in our performance tracking sheets for parents to view.