PRACTICE: other services
6. PARENT EDUCATION
School psychologists know that parent education is key to supporting and fostering healthy, happy and productive learners. School psychologists provide parent education by offering workshops in local schools and communities. Some of the topics addressed by school psychologists in parent education workshops include:
- Children with learning disabilities
- Behaviour problems at home - what to do about them
- Child and adolescent achievement and motivation
- Enhancing student self-esteem by positive discipline and effective communication
- Stress management for parents and children
In these workshops, local resources available to parents are highlighted. School psychologists also run parent support groups in schools. They also provide parent education ot parents on an individual basis; this would be as part of feedback to parents when an individual psychoeducational assessment has been carried out.
7. PREVENTION PROGRAMS
School psychologists become involved in a number of prevention programs within their boards of education. The Early and On-going Identification program is a Ministry of Education and Training mandated program that requires school boards to identify young learners at risk. Psychological Services staff are often part of the school team who identify these "at-risk" children. In that role, they consult with parents and teachers, to help ensure that programs become modified to meet the child's unique needs.
Psychological Services staff are also often part of a school support team. This multi-disciplinary team of professionals (often including a social worker, a resource teacher and a speech/language pathologist, along with the school psychologist) supports the classroom teacher in trying to modify the regular program to meet an individual child's needs. Sometimes a child's learning problems can be identified and managed without further assessment/intervention through consultation with the school's support team.
8. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Members of Psychological Services often are requested to
provide professional development opportunities for others in
the educational community. Their presentations, workshops and/or
seminars can cover a range of topics, e.g., Attention Deficit
Disorder, Violence Prevention, Social Skills Training, Behaviour
Management, Crisis Intervention, etc. A variety of groups in
the educational community have benefited from these professional
development sessions. For example, superintendents, principals,
teachers, educational assistants, parents and community groups
have participated and found them to be informative and helpful.
9 PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
School psychologists sometimes develop specific programs which are within their area of expertise. For example, programs such as Social Skills or Anti-Bullying training have been developed by Psychological Services staff. Once the program has been developed, staff typically in-service teachers on the program. This allows the teachers to deliver the program to their classes.
10. PROGRAM EVALUATION
Psychological Services staff in Ontario Schools provide many programmes for students. Once completed, they evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes. Evaluation information is used to refine the programmes.
11. SERVICES TO INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS
Psychological Services staff do ongoing evaluation of their counselling and intervention services to individual students. The student's response to the counselling is considered in determining the content of the next counselling sessions. Outcomes for students, including changes in behaviours and emotions are indicators that the counselling services are being effective.
12. SERVICES TO GROUPS OF STUDENTS
Psychological Services staff evaluate the outcomes of the group counselling, prevention and intervention services that they provide to students. Outcome goals are set at the onset of the group, and students are evaluated at the end of the group to determine which outcomes have been achieved.
Evaluation data are used to
determine the effectiveness of group programmes, and to
plan adjustments in programmes to effect more positive outcomes
for future groups of students. Evaluation measures may include
questionnaires, discussion and measures of changes in behaviour
and emotions. Parental permission for such evaluation is
obtained when parents give their informed consent for their
child to participate in the group.
13 SERVICES TO WHOLE CLASSES OR WHOLE SCHOOLS
Psychological services staff work with school staff to plan an implement prevention and intervention programmes for whole classes and whole school populations. Programmes include evaluations, based on the goals of the programme. By evaluating the responses of large groups of students, psychology staff can make adjustments in the programme to better meet the needs of the student population.
14 RESEARCH
Psychological services staff may use group evaluation information, without identifiers, to research outcomes of their services, and to develop more efficient and effective services to students. Journals that publish the research of school psychologists include:
Canadian Journal of School Psychology