Clinical supervision: strengthening your team through education and support

 
This fall we have seen an increase in the number clients and colleagues who have looked to Walker Partnerships to provide clinical supervision to school-based personnel.

An essential component of the clinical work, case management, and professional development of a school adjustment counselor or school-based social worker, clinical supervision helps your team bring a powerful set of helping strategies to individual students and their families, relevant and applicable in school, at home, and in the community.

Walker Partnerships clinical supervision provides two major functions that enhance the service delivery of social workers and counselors: education and support.  Skilled supervision is a platform for continuous learning and helps professionals expand their breadth of knowledge, particularly related to evidence-based practices.  It is also a way to mediate the effects of the difficult challenges your helping professionals face each day by providing constructive feedback, building skills for managing and resolving conflicts, and facilitating cross-cultural communication.

Supervision traditionally includes an administrative component that involves directing responsibilities and evaluating performance. Although our supervisors do not provide these functions directly to staff members who are not Walker Partnerships employees, we do work very closely with building-based administrators to ensure that performance information about your school-based personnel—strengths, areas requiring growth—is incorporated into an employee’s evaluation.

With the help of Walker Partnerships, supervision can provide the support for your team that sustains morale, facilitates personal growth, and promotes an increased understanding of your shared mission, vision and values.

Finding better ways: program evaluation and program development

With the fiscal year-2011 budget-planning process about to begin, many school systems will be looking for ways to assess and maximize the impact of existing programs, while creating new programs that build their capacity to serve students who struggle with complex learning challenges. Walker Partnerships can assist your efforts to optimize your special education programming, and find cost-effective ways to educate more troubled students within your school system.

Program Evaluation:
Walker Partnerships senior staff members conduct approximately 15 program evaluations and reviews each year. Many of these are system-wide special education evaluations, but others are for building-based programs, related to a specific service, or required by the guidelines of a federal grant. These program evaluation and reviews are designed to identify the current and long-term needs of the district, improve current service to students, enhance exiting programs and services, and determine the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the programs and services that are currently in place.

Program Development:
During the next few months, Walker Partnerships will be assisting school systems with the creation of new services for students with complex social/emotional/behavioral needs. Robin Norman, M.Ed., a Walker Partnerships senior staff consultant, can offer knowledgeable advice on placement practices and can assist many school systems in their efforts to expand and develop programs that reduce out-of-district tuitions and transportation costs.

Contact us to find out how Walker Partnerships staff can work with your team to review current out of district placements and develop an action plan for potential program expansion and development that will result in more students effectively served within your school system.

In Memoriam: Raymond J. Bohn

 
One of our dearest professional friends, a colleague and senior staff consultant for Walker Partnerships, Raymond J. Bohn, unexpectedly passed away on a family trip to California on September 26^th.

For those who have worked with Ray and have known him over the years, we will all miss his warm sincere smile and great sense of humor. He was truly one of the good people in this field of work that we do. His long and illustrious career is a wonderful example of what one can accomplish to better the lives of others.

An on-line guest book has been set up for those who wish to leave a message of condolence.

Walker Partnerships welcomes new educational coordinator

 
We are proud to welcome Tamara Barrera, M.Ed. to the position of Walker Partnerships educational coordinator.

For the past four years, Tammy has been a senior staff consultant for Walker Partnerships. In her new half-time role, she will be responsible for behavioral program development, implementation of and consultation to programs that serve students with social/behavioral/emotional needs, professional development, and case consultation to school-based personnel and program evaluations. 

“I am delighted to reconnect with Walker,” she says.  ”I have missed working with such special children and talented staff, and Walker Partnerships has such a positive impact on the lives of the children, families, and professionals in great schools across Massachusetts.”

Those familiar with Walker’s Needham campus programs may know Tammy from her previous role at The Walker School as associate principal of the day program.  Her new role further strengthens the capacity for Walker Partnerships to deliver a school-based wrap around approach to programs looking for new and effective ways to provide special education services.

New Walker Partnerships collaborations continue to expand services to troubled students

 
More and more school districts facing budgetary challenges are turning to Walker Partnerships as an effective way to leverage their limited resources to provide high quality academic and therapeutic services to their students with complex social/emotional/behavioral needs. The Walker Partnerships presence remains strong in programs across eastern Massachusetts, with twelve staff members assigned to programs in eight Massachusetts school districts at various grade levels.

In collaboration with Walker Partnerships, the Bridgewater/Raynham Regional School District opened a new elementary therapeutic day program in September. Under the leadership of Gay Yelle, director of pupil personnel services for the district, Walker Partnerships worked to develop and implement this therapeutically designed program.

Now in full operation, the new elementary therapeutic day program comprises a special education teacher and paraprofessional employed by the district, as well as a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC). Additional behavioral and program consultation and psychiatric consultation are provided through contracted services by Walker Partnerships. 

To ensure successful progression, Walker Partnerships consultation will also be provided to the current middle school program so that clear program goals, practices, and procedures are articulated and in place as students make the transition to the middle grades.

 This new partnership follows the recent development of an off-campus alternative high school program by Walker Partnerships and Wareham Public Schools, successfully launched in May. These examples of school districts taking action to reduce the out-of-district placement of troubled students, represent just some of the ways Walker Partnerships can work with your staff to build capacity within your school system for educating students with complex social/emotional/behavioral needs.