School Advocacy and Team Building
Bridging the gap between home, specialists and school.
When your child has additional learning needs, it’s essential that home, specialists and teachers work as a well-coordinated team — but this isn’t always easy.
Schools need specific information, language and guidance to implement classroom adjustments, individual learning plans (IEPs, PLPs), exam provisions and learning support. Your specialists (tutors, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, paediatricians) need information from the school to assess your child’s progress and to identify the priorities they need to work on. And all the while, someone should be looking at the big picture of your child’s wellbeing as they grow and develop to identify gaps and the need for big-picture changes in approach.
“Your child needs you to be their parent, not their tutor, school advocate and case coordinator.”
~ Jillian Shapiro, Psychologist and Founder of Shapiro Learning
I have ten years’ experience as a school psychologist in which I played just this role, advocating for school support services and serving as the point person between school and specialists to ensure your child gets the right help at the right time. This includes:
Attending school meetings to learn about the school’s concerns, help them see your concerns, and recommend strategies that works within their setting, values and resources
Preparing formal documentation to help the school obtain funding, make curriculum adjustments and/or organise appropriate test and exam support
Observing your child at school and gathering information from staff to update your specialists in one hit (so the school doesn’t have to communicate with many people about the same thing)
Sharing information between team members to ensure everyone is using consistent strategies and approaches
Monitoring your child’s big-picture development and recommending changes to the support plan and team when needed