Meet Michael Fogel, Author of the Social-Emotional Handbook

Mike Fogel, MA, ATR-BC, LPC, an art therapist and licensed professional counselor, is passionate about children, parenting, and playfulness in therapy. Inspired to create a better world, Mike innovated award-winning child therapy programs and businesses: The Art of Friendship Social-Coping Program® (2000), Child and Family Art Therapy Center (2007), Camp Pegasus (2013), and the BetterWorld Affordable Art Therapy Program (2019), and Philadelphia Art Therapy Associates (2000). In 2006, he received the “Innovative Application of Art Therapy Award” and opened The Child and Family Art Therapy Center (CFATC) the following year.

Mike’s work is supercharged by heartfelt faith that every person has the innate capacity to heal, grow, and progress toward their vast personal potential, and his parents and children “get that.”

Since 1995, Mike cultivated a specialty in social skills group therapy with neuro-diverse children with High Functioning Autism, ADHD, and learning differences. The unique needs of this population stimulated Mike’s creation of a comprehensive program for teaching social and emotional coping-skills. As it turns out, most parents and professionals who learn Mike’s techniques and social-coping skills language say that everyone, adult and child, can benefit from these lessons!

His year-round social skills group therapy work is enhanced by his intensive therapeutic social skills day camp, Camp Pegasus, in Philadelphia’s suburbs. The camp’s social skills curriculum originated from the clinical practice and research of the Art of Friendship Social-Coping Program, the Philadelphia region’s original social- and emotional-coping skills training program. Mike’s warm, joyful style engages even the most reluctant child, and his training style presents complex concepts in clear and memorable ways.

Mike was an adjunct professor and clinical supervisor in Drexel University’s graduate art therapy program for 15 years. You can find him at conferences and workshops around the country, where he is a popular presenter on creative and visual ways to help children and families overcome challenges and thrive. He has served in volunteer positions on the board of directors of the Asperger & Autism Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Art Therapy Association. Presently, Mike is thrilled to fulfill his dream of sharing his loving and creative lessons worldwide through publication and presentation.

What clients say about Mike's teaching:

"Anytime someone can give information in such a manner that it seems so simple, it means that they are incredibly brilliant...[Mike] breaks it down so that everyone can gain from it. The easier it seems to those you teach, the smarter and wiser the teacher. And [Mike] does that flawlessly."

-Stacey, parent of a longtime participant in Mike's programs and frequent attendee of his seminars

Click this link to preview an excerpt from "the Social emotional handbook"  

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"I am so worried about my daughter; she has no friends.”

“When I try to stop my son’s tantrum it gets worse.”

“How is my daughter ever going to make it in college if she struggles this way now?.”

“Consequences don’t work. Nothing seems to work.”

“He drives everyone crazy but doesn’t realize he’s doing it.”

“I don’t know how to help.”

I hope after reading this book, you will have a range of tools to address these concerns and more. My intention is to provide you with unique support skills and strategies so that you feel more competent, more impactful, and more hopeful about your child’s social development. This manual outlines many of the techniques that we use in the Art of Friendship Social-Coping Program® and Camp Pegasus. I also recommend many of these ideas in consultations with parents and schools. You will learn a support and training framework that...

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Click the link above to read the entire introduction section of the Guidebook.