Contact Us



Online:
Please use our Contact Form

Telephone:
800-515-7614

Mail
SkillBuilding Buddies
c/o Mazzarella Media, LLC
P.O. Box 86
Bristol, CT 06011
USA


Meet Our Team



Anthony J. Mazzarella


Thomas Mazzarella


Mark Mazzarella


Scott A. Roderick
M.A., BCBA
Behavorial Consultant


Hilary C. Boorstein


Jacqui McCormick M.A.
CCC/SLP


Northeast Interactive
Site Development


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Anthony J. Mazzarella

An Emmy™ Award winning writer, Tony is an expert in the development of educational programming for children. As a co-founder of SkillbuildlingBuddies.com, Tony serves as CEO along managing the day to day operations of the company. When not volunteering his time coaching high school football or going to the movies, Tony spends most of his day writing and developing new ideas for skillbuilding Buddies. Tony is an award-winning writer, composer and producer. He's written hundreds of elementary education programs in the areas of science, social studies, guidance and health.

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Thomas Mazzarella

Tom is an avid volunteer and uses his skills to help community and religious organizations. One of the founders of Skillbuilding Buddies, Tom's role is the primary editor and cameraman for the company. Tom has earned numerous awards for his production and post-production talents. His creative ability and technical skill combine to maintain steadfast technical quality and high production values for each production.

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Scott A. Roderick, M.A., BCBA

Scott is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst who is currently in private practice consulting to school-based preschool, elementary and middle school autism programs. Scott received his M.A. in Behavior Disorders and Special Education from Columbia University's Teachers College and has worked within education and with individuals with developmental disabilities for over 12 years. Previously, he was a Teach for America Corps member, taught in New York City, and also worked with the United States Peace Corps on a large disability project in rural Bulgaria. He has presented research at regional and international conferences. Scott has also taught as an adjunct professor of behavior analysis at University of Connecticut. Scott lives in Eastern Connecticut with his wife Melissa, two sons, Noah and Elias, and his dog Pedro. Scott enjoys organic vegetable gardening and spending time in the outdoors hiking and camping with his family.

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Hilary C. Boorstein

Hillary is a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut, where she is specializing in pediatric neuropsychology and developmental disabilities. She also consults to a public school district's special education preschool and has designed programs for children with autism as well as those with multiple disabilities. Hilary received her BA in psychology from New York University. Afterwards, she taught for five years at a residential school for children and adolescents with significant developmental disabilities, including autism. Hilary has presented research on a variety of autism topics at regional, national, and international conferences. Hilary lives in Eastern Connecticut with her cat, Riley. She enjoys hiking, reading, cooking, and going to the beach.

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Mark Mazzarella

Mark is an award-winning director and the company's principle producer. His ideas are the creative backbone of the company's product-line. His talents provide the company's productions with their unique look, feel and style.

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Jacqui McCormick M.A., CCC/SLP

Jacqui has worked at the at the West Hartford Public School's Early Learning Center for the past 15 years, and was a member of the task force that contributed to the development of the CT State Department of Education's Guidelines for Identification and Education of Children and Youth with Autism, (July 2005). She received her BA and MA from Hofstra University. Originally from Long Island,NY, Jacqui lives in Simsbury, CT with her husband and 3 children. Jacqui enjoys cooking and gardening, and is a volunteer for Labs4rescue.

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Northeast Interactive - Visit Site

Tony Jr, a co-founder of Skillbuilding Buddies is an expert in new media technologies. He specializes in website and application development, along with video technologies and internet marketing strategy. Tony is the Director of Development for SkillBuildingBuddies.com overseeing the web development team and internet marketing. Tony is an avid music and sports fan, and when he's not working, coaches high school football and lacrosse. Tony is married with two young children and one on the way.

about_us_head

It started with a phone call….

Mazzarella Media had been producing children’s educational videos for over 20 years. About four years ago, we received a phone call from a special education teacher. She called to tell us she had been using our preschool videos with several autistic students in her classroom. The results, she said, were phenomenal and she was very excited. We felt good about it, but the word “autistic” didn’t really mean a lot to us at the time.

Then more letters and phone calls…

Several months later we received a letter from a parent of a child with autism. She informed us that her son learned the alphabet and how to count by watching our videos.
We said, “Wow! That’s great.”

We continued to get phone calls and letters from parents and educators about how well our learning programs worked with children with autism.

Autism touches someone we know…..

Then, a friend of ours called and said that her child had been diagnosed with autism. We learned more about it. We wanted to help.

The idea……

We thought, “If our videos worked so well for autistic children, and we didn’t even know we were doing it, what could we do if we had experts to guide us?”

That’s when the idea of SkillBuilding Buddies was born!



Our Approach

The Skill Building Buddies approach to producing children’s educational media is based on the following principles:

Kids are kids.

All kids like to be entertained. Our programs combine humorous, animated segments and developmentally-appropriate, live-action scenarios to demonstrate clearly defined skills.

Kids like cartoon characters and music

We use animated characters that are friendly and engaging and help kids learn (thus the name “skill building buddies”). Plus we incorporate music into each program. Each demonstrated skill is reviewed and reinforced with a fun music video.

Quality counts.

Our programs are produced with the highest production values. We produce the best quality children’s educational videos in the industry.

Programs must be effective.

Our video-based interventions help children learn the skills they need to communicate and socialize with others and to perform daily activities independently. And research has shown that video-based interventions work!