Case Consultation Model

Hibbard Consultation Model

An Approach to Working with Refugee Children in an Elementary School

Goals:

Our overall goals are to support the school in the work it’s doing to educate and refugee students, and to meet the needs of the students who may need mental health support. We see our work as encompassing both prevention activities as well as intervening with students who are already exhibiting symptoms. We also see connecting the school and parents as an important component of this work.

Specifically we have the following 3 objectives:

1. All Refugee Students (Selective). Attend to the needs of all refugee students and parents that are specific to them.

Meeting the needs of refugee students includes:

1. Parents- Having special efforts to conduct outreach and hold special meetings with refugee parents to help educate them about the school, help them become more involved in supporting their children’s education, and ultimately help them become integrated into the life of the school (objective 3). Activities can include home visits conducted by WRC staff, and meetings between parents and Hibbard staff held at the school and/or at WRC.

1. School team- Establishing a school-wide team that meets regularly (e.g. monthly) to discuss the adjustment of refugee students at school. This team can discuss general programming issues or specific children who may have unique needs. Staff represented on this team can include World Relief clinical and social service staff, Hibbard mainstream teachers, relevant members of administration including bilingual education department.

1. Students- Since most refugee students are in ESL classrooms, World Relief mental health staff will spend time in the classroom to support the teacher, provide consultation to the teacher on classroom management, and identify children who may be in need of further assessment and individualized (targeted) services.

1. Individual Refugee Students (Targeted). Provide individualized mental health services to refugee students identified as experiencing symptoms.

Refugee students who have been identified as having mental health needs will receive individualized services conducted in the context of ongoing communication with the parents and the school based on the Conjoint Consultation Model. The intervention will include the following:

a. Meeting with parent(s) to discuss the child; conduct a home visit if necessary; engage parents in treatment and obtain consent to treat

b.Conduct classroom observation of the child in relevant school settings

c.Meeting with teacher(s) [ESL, mainstream, and other relevant teachers] to discuss child’s problems and strengths and determine teacher’s perspective.

d.Conjoint meeting/interview with teacher(s) and parents to jointly identify and define child’s strengths and needs and develop an intervention plan.

e.Conduct intervention with 3 possible components:

• Classroom intervention

• Provide suggestions to teacher on ways to manage the child’s behavior
• Assist teacher to develop a system for reinforcing positive behaviors (Daily Report Card)
• Create vehicles for consistent parent-teacher communication either through sending “good news” notes home, occasional meetings, parent coming to assist in classroom, possible home visit for teacher, bicultural mental health worker, etc.

• Family intervention

• Make suggestions to parents with respect to parenting practices such as reinforcement of desired behaviors, establishing routines, homework check, etc.
• Address possible parent-child conflicts
• Encourage parent involvement at school

• Individual intervention

• Provide therapy to child as needed, such as TF-CBT, or other modalities.

1. Whole School (Universal). Help the school as it works to integrate all refugee students into the academic and social life of the school. This is a universal school-wide goal to help ensure that all students feel that they are part of the school. Our belief is that when refugee students feel comfortable and a part of the life of the school, and when teachers and other students are comfortable with being in school with refugee students, all students will be better adjusted.

Being integrated into the school includes the following:

1. Having refugee parents participate in activities designed for parents in general, and help ensure that they have access to the school and the level of involvement in school activities that they are comfortable with
2. Support mainstream teachers to ensure that refugee students have their needs met in mainstream classrooms as they participate in activities with other students
3. Support administrative staff in developing policies that are inclusive and do not single out refugee students.

Implementation Process:

1. Engagement and Consent process

Objective: to inform refugee families about the WRC intervention and engage them in relationship with the school and the WRC team.

1. Hold first summertime event (focus group) at WRC to ask parents what their experience has been with school system. Discuss with parents what they would like to convey to administration, and whether they would agree to attend monthly or other regular meetings at the school.

1. Conduct home visits by WRC outreach worker and/or clinician to introduce the project, explain presence of social worker in ESL classroom, and potentially obtain informed consent from parents and child. Parents will be asked to consent to the procedure of social worker presence in the classroom and to have data collected on their children. Data will include SDQ completed by teachers (probably mainstream teachers) on each refugee child. CAFAS will be completed on children known to the Social Worker

1. Second event at WRC and have Administration there to have a social event to get to know one another in a positive context outside of the interactions that are more disciplinary in focus.

1. Hold third event for refugee parents in the fall at the school facilitated by WRC staff.

1. Consider WRC staff conducting second follow up visit with families/parents at progress report time to help facilitate communication with teacher. Consider collecting information from teachers about how the child is doing prior to the visit. We could develop a brief questionnaire for the teachers to complete that includes the SDQ and academic information that the WRC staff can then use to communicate with parents.

1. Establishing a school-wide Care Team (or “Refugee Student Team”).

Have WRC call this meeting early in the school year and facilitate a conversation about the kids.

1. Conducting interventions/observations in ESL classrooms.

1. UIC staff will conduct a formal interview with the ESL teacher to learn about her perspective on the students and about her needs.

1. Social Worker will begin working with the teacher early in the year to help her establish classroom management strategies from the beginning before any problems occur.