Working with Other Professionals

The teacher cannot always be the right person to help the learners overcome their barriers in learning or in life; there are situations where the teacher just has to ask for help to other authorities. For a teacher, knowing how and when to refer is an important part of setting their boundaries between their role and the role of other professionals such as colleagues, superiors, local services, social workers, etc. So for example if the teacher suspects that a learner could be a drug addict or can have problems with an alcohol addiction, then the right thing to do is to report this to appropriate local services. If a teacher suspects that a learner can suffer of a situation of abuse at home, then again the right thing to do is to refer to local authorities. It’s very important for a teacher to know what their responsibilities are and how to handle these kind of situations. In order to do that, a teacher should be aware of who to refer to; that’s why it’s important to have a list of all the local services that could be useful to ask for help with these issues.