Ecobehavioral Consultation in Schools

Theory and Practice for School Psychologists, Special Educators, and School Counselors

Steven W. Lee, Christopher R. Niileksela

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415993425
• eBook ISBN: 9781135849740
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Ecobehavioral Consultation in Schools is a practical, theory-based text that advances the practice of ecobehavioral consultation (EBC) and teaches consultants how to develop their own successful practice. It includes examples of what the consultant could say at each step of the process, over 30 easy-to-use forms, and more than 60 interventions available for download on the book's website. In addition, the explication of EBC theory helps the reader to better understand the "big picture" of each problem, going well beyond a strict behavioral approach to understand family, social, cultural, historical, and internal influences. Ecobehavioral Consultation in Schools is the perfect companion for students in consultation-training programs such as special education, school psychology, school counseling, school social work, or for any other school professional interested in working collaboratively with teachers and parents.

1 Introduction to Consultation

Although an ecological orientation has been advanced as an important element of school-based consultation (Gutkin & Curtis, 1993; Gutkin, 2009), no clear-cut models have been proffered, nor have the ecological elements of practice been clearly explicated to allow the practitioner to fully understand and practice ecobehavioral consultation (EBC). The reasons for this are likely threefold: (1) an ecological orientation is a relatively new feature in professional psychology. Historically, psychology has advanced a medical model, or intrapsychic orientation, to professional training. By definition, this limits an ecological orientation to practice (Gutkin, 2009); (2) psychologists have rarely been trained to assess the ecological or environmental features that impact their client. Therefore, practitioners often do not have the knowledge and skills to change their orientation to practice, no matter how compelling the rationale may be; (3) there is a lack of models, procedures, and instruments that would enable ecologically oriented psychologists to practice this approach. The purpose of this book is to provide a rationale, model, procedures, and tools to promote a more complete ecological orientation to school consultation (Gutkin, 1993, 2009).

Consultation Defined

Before discussing the basic concepts of consultation, it is necessary to define the individuals who are involved in the consultation process. Consultation situations typically include three entities, a consultant, a consultee, and a client. This is sometimes referred to as the tripartite model (Dougherty, 1990). Although there are situations where the consultant, consultee, and/or client can be comprised of more than one individual (e.g., organizational consultation, Brown et al., 2011), for the purposes of defining the roles of those involved in consultation the focus will be on individual consultation. More information regarding multiple individuals in the consultation process is provided in Chapter 7. These three entities may be best described by the roles they play in the consultation process. Kratochwill and Bergan (1990) indicate that the consultant is typically a professional who is versed in the consultation process and has some expertise in a particular area (such as education) to help provide resources and knowledge to the consultee about a particular problem. The consultant can also be seen as the facilitator of the consultation process, and as a resource for knowledge or skills in a particular area. The consultee works directly with the client, and usually the consultee is experiencing some type of problem in their functioning with the client. Bergan and Kratochwill (1990) state that the consultee is typically responsible for describing the problem, helping evaluate and decide on possible solutions and whether the outcomes are acceptable. Additionally, the consultee typically works directly with the client in order to implement or supervise the implementation of any interventions that have been planned. Finally, the client is the individual or individuals targeted for change. The main role of the client is to change in the manner that was decided upon during the consultation process. The client may be involved in helping to set goals or deciding on aspects of the plan that were initially developed by the consultee and consultant, but this is not always the case.

To summarize, a consultant uses their knowledge of the consultation process to help the consultee develop a plan that will ultimately improve the consultee's functioning as they work directly with a client. The effect of the consultant on the client, typically, is indirect through the consultee. In a school-based setting, the consultant is typically a mental health professional (e.g., school psychologist, social worker, counselor) who works with a consultee (e.g., teacher, administrator) to help them work more effectively with a client (e.g., student). The main point is that there is a consultant who works directly with the consultee to help the consultee improve their own functioning with a client.

The term collaboration is often used when referring to consultation or problem solving, and it may be confused with consultation. Brown, Pryzwansky, and Schulte (2011) indicate that “Collaboration involves pooling the expertise of the collaborators and using the information as the basis of problem solving” (p. 3). Although this sounds similar to consultation, there are some important differences. Collaboration may be more appropriate for systemic-level changes because it can involve the participation of a number of individuals, but it can also be used between two individuals to help solve a problem. Collaboration (as defined by Rubin, 2002) also appears to follow a lessstructured process than consultation.

The consultation process has numerous characteristics, and historically authors have sought to provide a succinct definition for consultation. Some of these definitions are provided below to allow the reader to compare and contrast them. There are many similarities in these definitions, but each has some unique differences. Brown et al. (2011) provide a process-oriented view of consultation that emphasizes developing and/or changing the attitudes and skills of the consultee. Their approach offers a more preventive orientation by assisting the consultee in skill development that may be sustained and used after the formal consultation has been completed. These authors view the client in various ways. The client may be an individual, such as a student in school, or a group, such as in a classroom or school.

Consultation is defined as a voluntary problem-solving process that can be initiated and terminated by either the consultant or consultee. It is engaged primarily for the purpose of assisting consultees to develop attitudes and skills that will enable them to function more effectively with a client, which can be an individual, group, or organization. Thus, the goals of the process are twofold: enhancing services to third parties and improving the ability of the consultees to function in areas of concern to them.

(Brown, Pryzwansky, & Schulte, 2011, p. 1)

Dougherty (1990) offers an ecologically oriented definition of consultation that emphasizes the “client system” as the focus of the consultation process.

Consultation is a process in which a human services professional assists a consultee with a work-related (or caretaking-related) problem with a client system, with the goal of helping both the consultee and a client system in some specified way.

(Dougherty, 1990, p. 8)

Guided by the work of Gutkin (1993), Zins and Erchul (2002) provided a definition of consultation that has a strong preventive orientation that emphasizes cooperation within the context of a problem-solving process that is based on ecobehavioral principles. The definition is broad enough to encompass groups and organizations that might (through consultation) improve the lives of children in school.

School consultation is defined as a method of providing preventively oriented psychological and educational services in which consultants and consultees form cooperative partnerships and engage in a reciprocal, systematic problem-solving process guided by ecobehavioral principles. The goal is to enhance and empower consultee systems, thereby promoting students' well-being in performance.

(Zins & Erchul, 2002, p. 626)

Zins and Erchul (2002) offer a broad and complete definition of the consultation process. However, the key to any definition in the behavioral sciences lies in our ability to operationally define the constructs inherent in the definition; that is the focus of the next section.

Characteristics of Consultation

The well-trained and effective consultant uses both scientific principles and clinical skills in the process of working with a consultee to effect change for his or her client. The elements of effective consultation are both art and science and will be explained below using bulleted statements. It is one thing to identify an effective practice, but it is quite another to explain it thoroughly enough that scientists and practitioners can study or emulate the techniques and processes involved. The goal of this text is to provide sufficient detail for both a clear understanding of consultation concepts and a clear explication of the skills required to effectively use these concepts in practice.

The following key features of consultation provide depth to its definition and provide an overview of concepts and techniques that make consultation a unique professional service.

•Consultation uses an indirect services model in which the consultant effects change for a client or client system through the consultee (Gutkin & Curtis, 2009; Zins & Erchul, 2002). This is in contrast to the direct services model (typically associated with the medical model), where a client (e.g., patient, student) is referred to a professional (e.g., physician, psychologist) and the professional sees the client and provides direct therapeutic treatment.

•Consultation uses a problem-solving process. The problem-solving process in consultation is typically a four-part model that includes problem identification, problem analysis, intervention development, problem evaluation and plan implementation (Bergan, 1995). However, it is acknowledged that problem solving is a complex executive process that is influenced by recognition and representation of the problem, the type of problem to be solved, knowledge, and experience (Pretz, Naples, & Sternberg, 2003). For the purpose of this book, the terms ‘target problem’ and ‘target behavior’ will be used synonymously.

•Consultation recognizes the principle of equifinality originating from general systems theory (Bertalanffy, 1969). In open systems (i.e., those that are reciprocally influenced by contextual factors) such as schools, it is posited that there are a number of different and potentially effective approaches to solving the same problem (Truscott et al., 2012). This principle frees the consultant and consultee from being locked into believing there is only one answer to solving the problem at hand, thus opening the problem-solving process for examination of contextual variables and numerous potentially effective solutions.

•The process of consultation is voluntary. This allows either the consultant or consultee to “opt-in,” continue, or withdraw from the consultation process at any time (Zins, Kratochwill, & Elliott, 1993). This freedom enhances “buy-in” for the consultee, thus assuming that the consultee remains in the consultative endeavor because of their perception of sufficient value for participating in such an activity. Consultees who are forced by an administrator to participate in consultation may exhibit reactance (Brehm, 1966) to the consultation endeavor.

•Consultation is a non-supervisory relationship that should focus on the work-related or professional problems (versus the personal problems) of the consultee. It should be made clear to both the consultant and consultee that activities related to the consultation are and will not be used to judge the consultee or become part of the consultee's professional file. While it is true that supervisors may in fact consult with their employees, that relationship is qualitatively different than two parallel professionals working together on behalf of a client.

•Developing a coordinate power (or co-equal) orientation toward working with the consultee is ideal. However, the consultation professional recognizes that power is an element of the consultation process that is not always equal. Erchul, Grissom, and Getty (2008) have studied the nature of power in consultation relationships and have categorized power into two types: hard power and soft power. In this study, practicing professionals reported that soft power was more effective for creating change and more acceptable than hard power to the consultee.

•The consultant accepts and communicates to the consultee the importance of confidentiality in the consultation relationship. This does not mean that the communications that are part of the consultation process need to be completely confidential; however, the consultee should be aware of and agree to the limits of confidentiality. For example, considering the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), it is certainly possible that others (e.g., parents, other teachers, paraprofessionals, principal) have a “legitimate educational interest” in the outcomes of consultation that are designed to help a student academically, socially, or behaviorally. It behooves the consultant to think carefully about this and to inform the consultee of the limits of confidentiality at the beginning of the consultation process.

•The primary goals of consultation are remediation and prevention (Gutkin & Curtis, 2009). Remediation focuses on developing an effective intervention that will assist the consultee with the current problem they are experiencing with the client. The preventive element of consultation seeks to assist the consultee by developing skills or values to change or otherwise empower the consultee to work more effectively on similar problems in the future.

•Consultation uses data-based decision-making with input from multiple data sources that include interviews with the consultee, observations of the client (or client system), interviews or interactions with the client, as well as information from the environment surrounding the consultee and the client. While these data sources may be both quantitative and/or qualitative, the ideal goal is have a firm basis for decision-making in the consultative process. The foci here are to reduce the tendency to make decisions based on emotional or convenience grounds.

•An important goal for interventions that result from the consultation process includes both acceptability and social validity of the intervention. The interventions that result from a collaborative problem-solving process, including the selection of the intervention by the consultee, take into account the exigencies of classroom environment and guarantee a measure of the initial acceptability and social validity of the intervention (Elliott, 1988; Wolf, 1978). The term “treatment acceptability” is often used synonymously with social validity. These terms are not synonymous, although treatment acceptability can be thought of as a component of social validity. Social validity is an important component to consider when designing interventions, but is often overlooked. It is useful to explicitly plan for and assess social validity because it will allow consultants to have a better idea of interventions that produce socially important effects and are acceptable to those who implement them.

•The consultant should be able to demonstrate significant process expertise to be effective. Process expertise (Schein, 1988b) refers to both knowledge of the problemsolving process and the ability to regulate the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Ecobehavioral Consultation in Schools
• School-Based Practice in Action Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editors' Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction to Consultation
• 2 History, Rationale, and Overview of Ecobehavioral Consultation
• 3 The Ecobehavioral Consultation Process
• 4 Functional Behavior Assessment and Intervention Design in Ecobehavioral Consultation
• 5 Evaluation Strategies in Ecobehavioral Consultation
• 6 Entry and Ethics in Ecobehavioral Consultation
• 7 Ecobehavioral Consultation in School-Based Problem-Solving Teams
• 8 Multicultural Ecobehavioral Consultation
• 9 Implementation of EBC Principles within a Response to Intervention Framework
• References
• Index