Case Study Narrative:
On a lazy, sunny, summer day several years ago in St. Joseph, MI, I was recently into my first summer vacation. My first year of full time teaching was complete and I was enjoying some downtime. I had worked with special needs students, students with emotional impairments and students with Autism for several years prior; mostly through community mental health organizations or subbing in local school districts, nothing full time or steady. One thing that I did know was the physical and emotional drain that this work and these students can have on you as a caregiver or teacher, so this aimless and thoughtless day was a welcomed event to a year with a new building, new co-workers, new students, and a new city.
The building …show more content…
I apologized and told the secretary that I was on my way to the building to remedy the situation. When I entered the building, I greeted the skeleton crew, began filling out the insurance form, and casually chatted with the principal and secretary. After the proverbial questions regarding the course and overall enjoyment of summer, not forgetting to address family visits, weather, and trips to the beach, to my surprise, the principal had an alternative motive for bringing me into the building. He had been in education for over 30 years and retirement was near. One of the many roles that he occupied was a district/building Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) trainer and because our program focuses on behavior, he wanted to continue to have two trainers in the building. He wanted me to take over this …show more content…
There is a process that you perform after a student comes out of a crisis situation which is a Life Space Interview (LSI). A brief overview of an LSI is a staff member and the young person explore the incident from both perspectives, talk about the behaviors associated with the crisis, discuss alternative behaviors, practice the new behaviors, and enter the student back into the program. One of the crucial pieces associated with this, and the trainers stress, is there is no consequence. That does not mean that there are no consequences, the policies of the school or district still are enforced, but the main focus is to teach and support. For example, if a student is in crisis and destroys a room (throws furniture, papers, other school property etc.), not uncommon in our buildings, the ultimate goal would be for the staff to return the student to normal functioning, learn why this occurred, and attempt to prevent this from happening in the future; not necessarily move directly toward consequating the student for their actions. If there was substantial damage to school property or staff or student injury the police would be contacted, but typically the feelings behind the behaviors and the resulting actions would be
On a lazy, sunny, summer day several years ago in St. Joseph, MI, I was recently into my first summer vacation. My first year of full time teaching was complete and I was enjoying some downtime. I had worked with special needs students, students with emotional impairments and students with Autism for several years prior; mostly through community mental health organizations or subbing in local school districts, nothing full time or steady. One thing that I did know was the physical and emotional drain that this work and these students can have on you as a caregiver or teacher, so this aimless and thoughtless day was a welcomed event to a year with a new building, new co-workers, new students, and a new city.
The building …show more content…
I apologized and told the secretary that I was on my way to the building to remedy the situation. When I entered the building, I greeted the skeleton crew, began filling out the insurance form, and casually chatted with the principal and secretary. After the proverbial questions regarding the course and overall enjoyment of summer, not forgetting to address family visits, weather, and trips to the beach, to my surprise, the principal had an alternative motive for bringing me into the building. He had been in education for over 30 years and retirement was near. One of the many roles that he occupied was a district/building Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) trainer and because our program focuses on behavior, he wanted to continue to have two trainers in the building. He wanted me to take over this …show more content…
There is a process that you perform after a student comes out of a crisis situation which is a Life Space Interview (LSI). A brief overview of an LSI is a staff member and the young person explore the incident from both perspectives, talk about the behaviors associated with the crisis, discuss alternative behaviors, practice the new behaviors, and enter the student back into the program. One of the crucial pieces associated with this, and the trainers stress, is there is no consequence. That does not mean that there are no consequences, the policies of the school or district still are enforced, but the main focus is to teach and support. For example, if a student is in crisis and destroys a room (throws furniture, papers, other school property etc.), not uncommon in our buildings, the ultimate goal would be for the staff to return the student to normal functioning, learn why this occurred, and attempt to prevent this from happening in the future; not necessarily move directly toward consequating the student for their actions. If there was substantial damage to school property or staff or student injury the police would be contacted, but typically the feelings behind the behaviors and the resulting actions would be