“Специалeн приятел” на дете със специални нужди

Разказ за задачите и функциите на студента–специален приятел, на дете със специални нужди в Детски дневен център за ранно детско развитие към Tufts University, Самървил.
Двамата заедно – специалният приятел и детето, заедно решават на какво ще играят; кога и как ще търсят помощта на учителя в групата.

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За функциите и целите на студентът–специален приятел на дете със специални нужди в Детски дневен център към Tufts University, Самървил. Двамата заедно -специалният приятел и детето, заедно решават на какво ще играят; кога и как ще търсят помощта на учителя в групата.

The special friends coordinators, what they'll do is talk to all the students that come down, but what are philosophy is, how we see their role. Their role is more set up so that they are here to play just with one particular child, that neither one is in charge, both of them decide what they want to play together. So it's a very even relationship in that sense. If there is a safety concern that the special friend sees, than they can intervene quickly, but if there's a conflict or the child is hurt, they come get a teacher. As much as we can we have the special friend be pulled out of any problems. Because we want their role just to be almost like a big brother, big sister relationship. As a center, we are constantly meeting with each other, and this is important too, as a staff, around what is our philosophy on inclusion, and how can we make it more successful through out the year. We just recently started having those parent forums around what is inclusion, and we start doing it earlier in the year. Because five years ago we had a problem where a bunch of families in a classroom wanted us to ask another child and family to leave the center. They started to write letters to us, and they were talking to the teacher and the director, saying that this little boy shouldn't be here because he did things that were too unsafe. So we met just with that classroom of families. I led a discussion. Before the meeting itself I sat down with the father of this little boy, and told him that he didn't have to attend this meeting, but I thought it would be important that he did. I told him why, and I told him that he'd sit right next to me. That I would field any complaints about it, and I prepped hi, saying these are some things that might come up. They might say the he shouldn't be here, that you're not doing you job as a parent, things that I had already heard the other parents saying about this father and about this child. I wasn't sure what this meaning would look like when it started, because it started off with the families just listing their complaints. Part of it is, as the meeting began we realized that we needed to make sure we're doing everything we can to keep their children safe. When this boy would get upset he often would throw blocks, so we listed a few things that we do in the classroom to help the other children be safe. And not so much how we're helping this child because even though we are had a lot of things in place to help this child that's not really the concern of the other families unless the parent wants to share that information. It was more about how we're keeping children safe in general in the classroom, and steps that we have based on the dynamics of the classroom. Not so much based on this one little child who was having difficulty. As the meeting went on, the father felt really comfortable to start saying that he wanted to remind the families that this is a little boy, he is only a four-year-old boy, and some of the things he's having a hard time with. After that discussion switched a little bit then they saw this child more as a child than a behavior. [36:00] Because a lot of times as soon as there is a safety concern a lot of families see the child just as behavior, as opposed to a little boy still. And how can we help that little boy with this frustration, whatever it happens to be. By the end of the meeting, the father called me the next day and said that parents were calling him on his cell-phone apologizing for the way they had initially seen this piece, and they worked together as a community in the classroom to help the child be able to express his frustration in a more appropriate way for the classroom. Then we found it really important, let's have these meetings right away about what is inclusion. Because a lot of families come here knowing that we are all about inclusion, but don't always know what that means. Because that word means a lot of different things, and it has a lot of levels to it. So having a meeting early to talk about what we see that has been really helpful. There's a bunch of different levels of teams here. In the classroom there is three full time teachers and a graduate teaching assistant. We meet as a team once a week outside of the classroom so we can talk about individual children, and once a week in the classroom so we can talk about the next steps in curriculum. That's helpful doing in the classroom because we do it at naptime and the children that are awake sometimes will give us input, to say, "Oh I really think we should do this now that we did that." When the individual team has questions that they can't answer, they might ask someone from another classroom to come in and observe. So we'll have teams among the classrooms as well. [38:00] We also will have meetings with the director, who comes to some of the team meetings. So we can give her input, and she can give us input on way we're working with families, or things we're doing with children. As the mentor in the classroom, I'll have individual meetings with each member of the team also, to talk about various goals they might have for the year, either around things like group management or working on increasing some type of technology in the classroom or art or music, what ever it happens to be that we decide together that we'd be working on. We definitely acknowledge the importance of meetings as groups, and we have the meetings throughout the week. And also, once a week on Friday the special education team, which is the director, the parent coordinator, myself, and then some teachers, from classrooms depending on what child we're talking about, meet every Friday, and the therapist also. So there is a lot of coordinating when people can meet. We will either discuss the children one by one, if we really have a lot f questions about a child, we'll do a one by one. Or if there is some type of group dynamic going on in a classroom we might do it as a whole. At those ones we try to get as many people as we can into that meetings, to do that. The ones that are one on one, we try to get as many as we can, it's less important, so we just make sure everyone gets the information at some point. When it's a group thing we try to get as many as possible.

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