¶ … Establishing Consultation and Collaboration in a School Calgary Public School Board has hired a resource teacher for an elementary/junior high school, which has 16 teachers and 325 students i.e. 150 and 175 students at elementary and junior high levels respectively. The school principal has indicated his desire to create some form of consultation and collaboration in the school. While the school has in the past referred students with special needs to special education placements in other schools, those with learning and behavioral difficulties have been removed from the resource room because they could not be placed in a district program. The former resource teacher did not work in collaboration with other teachers and stakeholders. As the new resource teacher, it's important to establish suitable measures for consultation and collaboration to help address the needs of special education students. Such a platform will help in dealing with the different cases in the school including the case of William, a thirteen-year-old Grade 7 boy suffering from attention deficit disorder and undiagnosed learning difficulties as well as Janna, an eight-year Grade 3 girl with behavioral problems and learning difficulties.

Models of Consultation and Collaboration

Consultation and collaboration are important components in the educational setting, especially one that includes students with special needs. For this elementary/junior high school, consultation and collaboration are crucial towards ensuring teamwork among teachers in order to effectively deal with learning and behavioral difficulties experienced by some students, particularly those with special needs. As the resource teacher in this school, I will address this issue through identifying a suitable model of consultation and collaboration. The model I will utilize in this school is the resource/consulting teacher program model (R/CT), which has been replicated in rural and large urban schools since it was implemented at the University of Illinois (Dettmer, Thurston, Dyck, 2005).

Through this model, the resource/consulting teacher provides direct and indirect service to students through the numerous opportunities it provides for enhanced interactions between teachers, parents, and students. Direct service is provided using tutorials and small-group instruction whereas indirect service is offered through consultation with classroom teachers during schooling hours. This model will be utilized because it provides a platform for key stakeholders (teachers, parents and students) to interact towards meeting students' needs. Additionally, it provides a mechanism for students in special education programs to be served alongside those in general classrooms as well as ensures that students are helped in the resource room and regular classroom setting. In some cases, the model will be combined with other suitable approaches for consultation...

However, the decision to combine approaches will be influenced by the specific issues in the case, available resources, and effectiveness of the approach in dealing with the student's condition.
Problem Solving

An example of a student in this school that could benefit from a suitable consultation and collaboration framework is Janna, an eight-year Grade 3 girl with behavioral problems and learning difficulties. Her behavior has become increasingly difficult to deal with as she has mood swings and attempts to dominate conversations with her peers and adults. While she performs well in subjects she's interested in, Janna is generally not performing well in school. Her parents think that her learning and behavioral difficulties are due to the teacher's inability to manage behavior and the fact that she is bullied.

The first step in the consultation process for Janna is scheduling a meeting with her parents and class teacher in attempts to understand the cause of her behavioral and learning difficulties. After this meeting, the next step will entail referring her to a school psychologist or any other relevant within the school or clinical setting (Feldman & Kratochwill, 2003). Following the referral, I (the resource teacher) will meet the consultant (school psychologist or other professional) several times for discussions regarding Janna and her problem. The objectives of these discussions will be to identify potential causes of the problem and identification of suitable, evidence-based interventions to deal with her problem. These interventions should be techniques that can be implemented in the school and home setting. The fourth step is receiving guidance from the consultant on how to implement these interventions in an effective manner. The next step will involve consulting the class teacher and/or parents regarding the proposed interventions. The sixth step is providing guidance to the class teacher and/or parents on how to implement the interventions in the school and home environment respectively. The seventh step is the implementation of these interventions by these stakeholders in collaboration and consultation with each other. The next step is reviewing Janna's response to the intervention vis-a-vis the desired objectives. If the learning and behavioral difficulties are resolved, the next step in this consultation experience is creating necessary measures to sustain the new behaviors. The final step will involve reanalyzing the intervention and process and selecting a different one if the current one does not resolve the problems.

Communication Strategies and Interpersonal Skills

One of the important factors towards the success of this consultation and collaboration framework for the schools is identifying and utilizing suitable communication strategies and interpersonal skills. The communication strategies…