| Description of good practice: |
The school psychosocial service is another crucial factor for Inclusive Education. It has responsibilities for the wellbeing of all students of the schools where they work. They conduct individual counseling with school students and organize thematic group discussions with them. In relation to Inclusive Education for CwD the school psychosocial service has several tasks. The school psychologist or social worker cooperates with teachers of preschool and primary level to identify children with special educational needs. They contribute to the early identification of the problems of child development in preschool and primary level of education. After the identification they contact the child’s parents and discuss with them on the ongoing process of the child’s education, inform them on the school opportunities to provide support teaching. The work of psychosocial service with parents has been very productive to release parents’ tension and fears for enrolling children in regular schools, sending them in RED/EO commissions for assessment, or providing them IEP in regular schools.
The school psychosocial service is part of the school commission for IEP. The school psychologist/ social worker is member of the school commission and leads its work for IEP. IEP learning objectives are implemented by the subject teacher with the supportive teacher’s support, while the school psychologist implements objectives related to behavior management. The school psychosocial service is part of RED/EO psychosocial service and participates in the multidisciplinary assessment commissions that formulate recommendations for schools. School psychosocial services gather on bimonthly basis at RED/EO to assess their work with regards to RED/EO recommendations on the implementation at school level.
The school psychosocial service employees report to the RED/EO psychosocial service head of unit that reports back to the head of curriculum division of RED/EO. The work of school psychosocial service is monitored by the supervisor of RED/EO psychosocial service. The supervision consists of two tasks: monitoring and capacity building of the school psychosocial service. Since psychosocial service is a new profession in education, without tradition, it is necessary to build staff capacity and monitor their work in a parallel way. Many school psychosocial services employees hired at pilot regions have previously worked as volunteers of MEDPAK. They have gone through a series of training on Inclusive Education. All psychosocial service teams at RED/EO and school level are trained by this project. The training has provided them with professional advantages as compared to other colleagues. The pilot school psychologists and social workers are working as MEDPAK facilitators in RED/EO and school level as well.
The school psychosocial service organizes open classes with students to discuss on disability, PwD rights, and special educational needs. The informing hours on the rights of CwD to education and community life has inspired many class and school activities of students’ council and has mobilized them to organize memorial festivities for the international days: PwD, Autism, and Down syndrome. They have worked with students to provide support to their friends with disabilities and learning difficulties. Trained by the project on disability issues (DSM5) as school service and on ICF checklist as RED/EE multidisciplinary team, they are able to spread the knowledge to the school staff. After the training, school psychologists or social workers have organized many informing hours and individual sessions with the school teachers on disability and special educational needs.
The training has helped the school psychosocial employees learn how to assess child needs, design and work with IEP and work for an inclusive school. Furthermore, the training has encouraged them to learn more about disability and special education. The work instruments, such as: standard checklists for evaluation of neuro-developmental difficulties among children of age 5-10 years old, disability assessment tools, class observing techniques, guidelines on developing and implementing IEP, working manuals and publications on Inclusive Education, provided by the project, have immensely helped them
to build professional capacity.
The school psychosocial service has helped a lot in the implementation of the index for inclusion in their schools. In cooperation with school principals they have prepared the study project of school self evaluation with index for inclusion and have worked out a set of questionnaires for teachers, students and parents. They have conducted the research in their schools and have collected the data. With the help of the school principals they have analyzed and interpreted the findings which oriented the school priorities for Inclusive Education. The objectives related to Inclusive Education are part of the mid-term school plan that is validated by RED/EO.
“I graduated as a psychologist from Tirana University, where I learnt general concepts and theoretical frames that have little to do with my daily practice as a school psychologist. In school we had no opportunities to practice the theoretical knowledge. I learnt what it means to be a school psychologist in this project. Previously I have worked as volunteer with the parents’ organization MEDPAK which provided me with the opportunity for internship near to organization. MEDPAK has trained me as school psychologist and now thanks to the internship, training and volunteer work I am better prepared to work as a school psychologist. The project was the real school for me.”
-Interview with school psychologist, at “Ali Metra” school, Burrel. |
