Collaboration Among Multiple Professionals

Written by Sam Keen (@ The Ed Queen) in collaboration with Navigating Behavior Change.

One thing proven to help a student who struggle is when a team of professionals comes together to create goals, plans and supports to help develop skills deficits and the student progress. Teams of professionals from diverse fields create a wrap around of supports that brings their area of expertise into perspective. The ultimate goal of these teams is ensuring that there is a common objective everyone is working towards (in this case, student independence). It is essential to have plan in place with observable benchmarks and data that show whether a child is making progress towards the goals or not. As the needs of a student become more intense or severe, sometimes more professionals are needed. So, the question becomes, how can you successfully collaborate among multiple professionals to ensure the student’s skills are streamlined and you are more likely to see success? In this blog post, we will be talking about collaboration and the importance of it when working with a team of multiple professionals for a student.

Collaboration

What really does that look like in a school setting? How can you collaborate better among your student’s team? Here are some tips to help create a more successful team for your student and don't forget to grab the FREEBIE at the end of the post!

• Set up meetings: We know there is power in frequent discussion and brainstorming sessions among professionals. Depending on the needs of the child, you may need to set up meetings where all of the professionals come together to talk about what they are working on and how it contributes to the student’s overall goals. Monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly meeting are a great way to check in with the other professionals and their successes or lack of them. Those who are having more success with the student can share tips and techniques, which can create a more streamlined version of plans for students.
• Have an agenda: Come with an agenda! Ensure everyone has a role in the meeting and make it known on the agenda. With so many participants involved, it is important that an agenda is made to guide the meeting. Ensure someone is leading the meeting and controlling the overall flow of the meeting. Create time limits and reflective questions on the meeting agenda that professionals can speak to when they come to the meeting. Send the agenda out in advance so everyone can look it over to ensure an active role in the meeting.
• Determine your roles: Sometimes your role in the child’s team can look different than another professional’s role. What are your specific responsibilities? What are you working on with the child that corresponds back to their goals and skills? Define your purpose for this student. A child may have a set of skills they need to work on, but that can look different among many professionals! Determine what your role is in helping that student meet his or her goals and what you plan to do to support the overall objectives by using your field of expertise.
• Develop goals: Speaking of goals… create goals together! Are there goals multiple professionals need to work on in each of their settings? If so, collaborate together and create a goal where you both are working on it in those specific settings. When creating goals that multiple professionals are working on at the same time, students are more likely to see success in those goal areas and meet the objectives or benchmarks within that goal.
• Find common language: We find common language used among multiple professionals is a way for students to identify what action is prompted from the language being used. For example: if a child is escalated we need to ensure our language is common so the child knows exactly when we want them to access their calming tools. We may have the common phrase to tell the child to ‘go get your calming kit’ and flash them a visual to support understanding. However, if one teacher tells them to ‘go get their calming kit’ and the behavior specialist tells them to ‘take a break’ we aren’t being discrete with our language, which can cause confusion. When we all decide on the use of common language and students are explicitly taught what the common language means, we are more likely to expect them to engage in positive behaviors or skill sets across multiple settings.   
• Generalize skills: Just as you can create goals and develop common language together, this helps to generalize skills in multiple areas. When students are working on the same skill set with multiple professionals across diverse settings, times, and situations, they can begin to generalize skills. When we teach skills to students, we need to ensure we are giving them the opportunity to practice the skills through new opportunities with multiple members of their team. Generalization gives students the since of mastering a skill and applying it in their life across multiple settings. 
• Create a plan: When ending a meeting, always have a plan. Ensure everyone knows what the plan is and what he or she needs to do to implement their part of the plan. Determine how you will know each person has implemented his or her part of the plan. Do you have a check in scheduled soon? Are you uploading data regularly for each other to see? Sometimes, there isn’t much of a plan needed and things can carry on as usual, however, there still needs to be that discussion so everyone is understanding and knows what is expected.
• Celebrate successes: Start each meeting with a celebration from each professional! What is working well in their expertise area that they should share with the group? Keep it positive! Sometimes with the toughest students, we can get down on ourselves when students aren’t making the progress we expected them to or wanted them to. It’s important we share even the smallest success so professionals feel important in the team for this child!

Check out Sam over on Instagram @theedqueen to learn more about her life as a special education teacher! 

Are you ready to start improving collaboration amongst school team members? Grab this FREEBIE we created to start planning and reinforcing the objectives all team members are working on with the student.