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To address the differing needs of children, the school must have systems in place to both identify as well as manage a wide range of academic and behavioral issues. A Turnaround Education Coach, assigned to each school, helps establish a team structure, which allows staff to determine causes of problem behavior and/or academic difficulties and effectively respond to those issues. The structure includes three teams:
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Core Team
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Instructional Support Team
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Student Intervention Team
The Core Team is responsible for developing and managing universal interventions and helping align early and intensive interventions to assure student success.
INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT TEAM
The Instructional Support Team (IST), which includes administrators, teachers, and student support staff, identify early those students who need additional academic and social-behavioral support and oversee the implementation of classroom strategies and other interventions that will meet their needs. In addition, the IST assists teachers seeking guidance in applying good classroom management and instructional techniques. Turnaround trains, coaches, and monitors the team.
STUDENT INTERVENTION TEAM
Students with more serious developmental learning and social-emotional/behavioral issues are referred, by the Instructional Support Team or others (family, social worker), to the Student Intervention Team (SIT). The administrators, teachers, and Student Support Social Worker that comprise the SIT Team receive training from Turnaround to access effective, intensive interventions. Interventions include appropriate and timely diagnosis, referral, and therapeutic supports to remedy or diminish the negative effects of serious developmental issues and mental illnesses. Treatment plans, including wraparound services for identified students and families, are established, monitored, and evaluated by the SIT. Services are aligned with school-wide initiatives to ensure that they are complementary.
The Education Coach also serves as a leadership consultant to the principal and core personnel (e.g., assistant principal, guidance counselors) to leverage change. The Education Coach instructs school leaders in:
- Implementing supervisory strategies
- Accountability
- Efficient resource allocation
- Organizational practices necessary to “enable teaching and learning
The principal is then empowered to align vision, expectations, and practices through the actions of the core group of leaders in the school who model appropriate behavior and demonstrate success. This shared commitment for change then gains momentum throughout the school.
The Education Coach further supports organizational change by providing professional development training and helping with the selection and implementation of positive school climate programs as well as other specialized enhancement activities. To provide such training and programs, Turnaround works in conjunction with nationally recognized experts/curriculums, including:
- Sandra Rief
- PeaceBuilders
- Life Skills
- Child Development Program
- The Classroom Organization and Management Program (COMP)
On an ongoing basis, the Education Coach acts with school leadership to make certain that new skills are practiced and refined.
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STUDENT SUPPORT SOCIAL WORKER
The Student Support Social Worker enables schools to support all students. The Student Support Social Worker is a licensed, certified social worker with extensive experience. To become a Turnaround school, each principal must commit within the first year of implementation to filling this position with a qualified individual.
The Student Support Social Worker works closely with the entire school staff to increase their capacity to ensure appropriate and timely identification, intervention, and follow-through for children at all levels of need. To do so, the Student Support Social Worker:
- Participates in the team process and training programs, directing school staff through the implementation of universal intervention programming and assisting in the design and implementation of the case management process
- Models best practices in crisis intervention, risk assessment, and positive behavioral support
- Develops safety nets for those students at various levels of need
- Trains staff to interact in culturally sensitive ways with families in an effort to increase their involvement in school life and to enhance their awareness of children’s social/emotional issues
- Develops linkages to community based resources to support the needs of student and their families
A significant portion of the Student Support Social Worker’s efforts focuses on students with moderate levels of need. To assist these students, the Student Support Social Worker:
- Utilizes selective interventions, such as group sessions
- Trains school staff to recognize the early warning signs of problems and offers strategies that provide additional support in the classroom
- Consults with teachers and staff regarding specific children
Turnaround partners with Columbia University School of Social Work to place Social Work Interns within Turnaround schools. Under the close supervision of the Student Support Social Worker, interns provide both universal and selective interventions, significantly increasing the number of children receiving support.
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FAMILY/COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT COORDINATOR
Research shows that students whose parents actively participate in their education have better attendance, exhibit more polished social skills, show improved behavior, adapt well to the environment, earn higher grades and test scores, and have increased rates of graduation. In addition, more subtle aspects of parental involvement, such as parental expectations, have a great impact on student educational outcomes.
Turnaround believes that families in each school community have assets that are untapped resources for our schools. The Turnaround Approach focuses on four main goals for family engagement:
- Increase family involvement with schools, school leadership, and their children’s education
- Help families with education and discipline issues that occur at home
- Involve families in the prevention of high-risk behaviors
- Better understand the additional needs of families and direct them to appropriate community services
Turnaround’s Family/Community Engagement Coordinator works collaboratively with the Student Support Social Worker and Education Coach to actively engage families in the life of the school (including their involvement in universal programs). The Family/Community Engagement Coordinator also works collaboratively to engage families whose children need selective or targeted interventions.
The Family/Community Engagement Coordinator performs coordination, strategic planning, and research functions including:
- Training families and school staff (in collaboration with the Student Support Social Worker) through workshops, forums, and fairs on the academic and behavioral issues facing children
- Creating informational packets and presentations on issues related to children’s social, emotional, and academic development
- Collaborating with partner programs (i.e. Linking Lives)
- Connecting Turnaround schools to other community resources so families have access to additional resources
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MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE MODEL
Current levels of mental health service are insufficient to serve the growing number of students who display disruptive, threatening, aggressive, or suicidal behavior. Turnaround utilizes a comprehensive three-level strategy to address students at every level of need.
Students with High Need
Receive targeted support such as crisis and/or case management as well as coordinated access to mental health and social services.
Students with Moderate Need
Receive selective interventions in the form of school-based mental health services, prevention programming, and “safety nets” (i.e., peer tutoring, social support groups, anger management).
Students with Less Need
Receive universal interventions designed to prevent problems from developing into crises while reducing risk factors for all, and participate in programs that create a positive, safe, and caring school climate.
Working with each project school, Turnaround determines the best way, based on available resources, to provide quality mental health services for those children most in need or at greatest risk. Services are offered through one of the following:
- A school-based program provides comprehensive outpatient mental health evaluation and treatment to children and their families at an onsite clinic.
- Mobile teams of professionals (consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers) deliver school-based psychiatric and psychosocial evaluations, crisis intervention, and linkage to offsite services in schools without in-house clinics.
- A mental health Triage and Consultation Unit under the direction of a child psychologist and consisting of social workers, a child psychiatrist, and a Family Engagement person offers emergency mental health services and triage by consultation with school personnel to determine “level of risk” in a time of crisis. Consulting also occurs by phone and during regularly scheduled visits to the school, allowing assessments to be done and treatment plans to be developed for children identified as needing further assistance.
The Triage and Consultation Unit performs a key role in increasing a school’s capacity to establish conditions for learning. Its ultimate goal is to empower schools to work more adeptly and with greater accuracy in responding to students’ emotional and behavioral issues. The consultation process and team structure prove to be valuable training tools for participating school staff.
