Support Services

What is an "Inclusion Support Teacher"?

One of the roles of the Spider Inclusion Support Services Teacher (IST) is to support students and parents whose children are facing challenges with specific learning or development areas. Your child could be having trouble with one or more of the following areas: pencil grip, written output, reading/reading comprehension/reading fluency, planning and organization, understanding and performing math at grade level, focus and self-regulation, impulse control, self-esteem, anger-management, anxiety, social interaction. Sometimes a parent come to us with a concern, and sometimes the SPIDER Team notices something and shares their observations about your child with you, to see if you would like to explore it further and allow us to work with you to support your child.

What the Support Process Might Look Like

The Initial Step:

Support will usually begin with a meeting or two with the SPIDER Teacher Consultant Team, to share strategies and resources that may help with the concern(s) that have been identified. It could be a one-time meeting that helps your child’s situation or it could mean some on-going support from Teacher Consultants and/or the Inclusion Support Teacher.

You are in Control of the Process:

Sometimes the SPIDER Team might recommend that you seek further support from outside of our SPIDER team for your child. We will always first obtain your 'Informed Consent' before proceeding with any referrals, specialist meetings/consultations or assessments. This form will specifically outline which service(s)/assessment(s) you are giving consent for. If you choose to sign the 'Informed Consent' Form, it will need to be renewed on an annual basis and can be cancelled by you at any time. Please remember that you will always be in control of the supports you wish for your child. Your decision whether to pursue or not to pursue recommendations, supports, referrals, or assessments etc. will be respected at every step of the way.

Set up a Paediatrician Visit:

If you have concerns, we often recommend setting up an appointment with a Paediatrician right away. This is to rule out any physiological reasons that might be causing your child’s struggles. To get a referral to a Paediatrician you need to go to your child’s Family Doctor and ask for a referral to a Paediatrician. The SPIDER teachers can write a letter to your Family Doctor outlining some of the concerns you have expressed and we have observed, if this is desired. You can take this letter to your Family Doctor and the Paediatrician. Once you get a referral, book right away as Paediatrician appointments can take months to get and so the sooner you call for an appointment the better.

Accessing OT, PT, SLP District Specialists:

Sometimes we will recommend accessing one or more of our District Specialists. These Specialists include:

• The District Occupational Therapist (OT), Melissa Berryman, who can assess and offer information and support for children with fine motor, sensory, and/or self-regulation challenges.

• The District Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP), Keri Jones, who can assess and offer resources and sometimes weekly or bi-weekly support for children who might have challenges with their speech and/or their expressive, receptive or social language.

• The District Physical Therapist (PT) Kathryn Harrison, who can assess and offer resources and/or support for children who have challenges with gross motor, muscle tone, stability, coordination and/or balance.

• We have access to an excellent video series on developing fine motor skills. Click here for the links.

Once the consultations or assessments are completed, the Specialists will often make recommendations as needed. Regular one on one therapy sessions with your child will not usually be the outcome for most children referred as these specialists have a very big caseload and can only do sessions with those students with the highest needs. They will likely provide you with a plan for daily and/or weekly exercises and may share useful resources with you that you can use at home to support your child. They will also check in with you on occasion to make sure that your child is progressing in their plan.

Accessing Support for Social-Emotional-Behavioural Challenges:

Sometimes a child may be struggling with some social, emotional and/or behaviour issues that are interfering with their ability to learn.

Some of these challenges might include difficulty with things such as focus and attention, following directions, planning, organizing, and executing a task. Some might have difficulty with navigating changes in their environment, making transitions and/or with reading social cues and interacting and communicating with others. Others might be experiencing levels of anxiety, depression or may be exhibiting behaviours that are interfering with their relationships with others (peers and adults).

In order to help parents and teachers better identify their child’s specific challenges, there are a few assessments that we can recommend to help identify these areas so that we can better support their specific needs and reach out to other professionals for support if necessary. These can be recommended by the Inclusion Support Teacher and consist of completing parent and teacher questionnaires.

Presently SPIDER does not have a school counsellor that serves us directly with counselling sessions offered. The Roberts Creek School Counsellor will currently work with the SPIDER IST to access specific assessments that we may recommend, but they are not able to offer in person sessions to our students.

For children with serious challenges in this realm, parents are encouraged to contact Child Youth and Mental Health Services in Sechelt in order to apply for access to support and /or counselling.

https://www.sccss.ca/programs/child-family-counselling/community-mental-health-services

Administrative Offices

Monday - Friday

9am - 4pm (closed 12pm - 12:30pm for lunch)

Ph: 604-885-5881

Accessing Support from a District Family Support Navigator (FSN):

Sometimes, as parents, you might experience some challenges with your child that you need help navigating especially if you yourself are feeling overwhelmed and/or are lacking the confidence and/or knowledge of where to start and how to access the resources and supports you need. The SPIDER Team may not know specifically how to provide you with the support you may need. In such cases, you may be asked if you wish to be referred to one of the two District Family Support Navigators, Karys Foley and Sarah Joseph. They are trained with a social work background to provide you with the support you need while they also work to connect you with resources you and your child might benefit from.

Possible Assessments to Help Determine Learning Needs/Differences

Sometimes the SPIDER Team and/or IST may make a recommendation of an assessment or assessments that could help us better tease out your child's unique learning needs/differences so that we can, with the results of these assessments, provide you and your child with more specific strategies and supports they might benefit from. We may ask if you would like us to do a reading assessment (such as the PM Benchmark) that helps us to know what level your child is reading at. We may ask if you wish us to do an Achievement Assessment (using the WJ Achievement Assessment) to determine how your child is doing with reference to their same age peers. These can give us windows into the areas they might need more support in and my also show us that they are struggling to the point that further assessment may be necessary to tease out whether there is something more complex going on for them that is making it difficult to learn.

When a child is showing signs of significant struggle with academics, in which they are still not progressing even with lots of support (which might include, but not be limited to, the need for intense one on one assistance, lots of necessary repetition to learn a skill or understand a concept, a high level of support with organization and planning, support with focus and self-regulation) we will discuss with you the possible use of an assessment to help us understand whether or not they have a specific learning challenge in a specific academic area. The formal terminology for such a challenge or learning difference is a ‘Specific Learning Disorder’, which is not the most sensitive wording to identify that your child has a learning difference, but in use despite this. Some of you may better understand the terminology, 'Dyslexia’ which is a challenge with reading, 'Dysgraphia’ a challenge with written output or 'Dyscalculia’ a challenge with math. School Psychologists are trained to assess for and identify these through the Psycho-Educational Assessment Process.

What is the Psycho-Educational Assessment:

A psychoeducational assessment, sometimes referred to as a Psych-Ed, is an assessment of how a student learns. It measures a student’s different types of reasoning, memory, and working efficiency. This is in contrast to assessing their ‘learned knowledge’ that includes things like math facts or vocabulary definitions. SPIDER is given the opportunity to put forward about two students a year for this Assessment. The IST meets with the SPIDER Team, the SPIDER Principal, and sometimes the School Psychologist to determine which students should have priority for the assessment each year. Sometimes the waits are long for this assessment. Some parents choose to pursue private psycho-educational assessments to speed up the wait time.

What Background Information is needed Before A Psycho-Educational Assessment:

Prior to being put forward for a ‘Psycho-Ed’ Assessment by the SPIDER IST, it is likely that you have already contacted the SPIDER IST about your concerns regarding your child’s learning. You and the the IST have already had multiple meetings to work together on learning more about your child’s specific learning needs/differences and have discussed ways to support your child in their day to day learning. You have also gone to the Paediatrician to rule out or learn more about physiological reasons for your child’s challenge(s)/differences. Some paediatricians may have diagnosed your child with something which would have given you and the SPIDER Team more information to work with when planning supports for your child. You may have had other assessments done that have looked at your child’s fine motor, gross motor and/or Speech and Language development to determine if these areas are contributing to your child’s struggles. You will likely have also had an assessment done to look at your child’s level of academic achievement as compared to their same age peers (WJ-Test of Achievement). You may have also completed some parent questionnaires that look at your child’s attentional, organizational, behavioural, or emotional needs if these are areas that are causing some learning challenges for your child.

What Happens After the Assessment:

Using the Psycho-Educational assessment findings, the School Psychologist is usually able to tease out areas of strength and challenge for your child. She can diagnose ‘Specific Learning Disorders’ in Reading, Writing or Math using this assessment if the assessment findings indicate this. After the assessment, the School Psychologist often meets briefly with you and the IST to share her initial findings. A very detailed Formal Psycho-Educational Report is then written up and given to you. A debrief is set up to discuss the findings and recommendations with you once the Final Report is complete. This report will include all of the results of the assessments done, it will also outline recommendations and specific supports that can be provided to help your child learn to the best of their potential, and it will identify specific learning disorders if they are present. Recommendations and formal diagnoses from such a report can potentially allow your child access to specific supports while a student. For you as their teacher, it will provide you with many strategies to work with your child more effectively to support their learning. And, if your child does ever begin to attend a typical classroom at a school, these recommendations can give you the formal basis with which to advocate for the recommended supports for them when they are in school. For instance, if they are diagnosed with a Learning Disorder in Reading, it will likely be recommended that they have access to use text to speech technology so that they can access their school work, if they have a Written Output Disorder, it will likely recommend that they be allowed more time on assignments, reports and tests and be allowed to show their learning in alternative formats. If they have received an ADHD Diagnosis (from their Doctor which the School Psychologist will incorporate into her report if she receives this information from the Doctor), it will likely be recommended that they be provided a quiet space to work and/or write a test and be given time for breaks as needed to help them self-regulate.

If you have any concerns about your child’s learning. Please reach out to contact one of the SPIDER Teacher Consultants and/or the SPIDER Inclusion Support Teacher to discuss your concerns further. They can discuss next steps with you. Learning can be a complex journey for many but there are ways to support every journey!