Educational Support Services

To support the educational programs, the school provides a range of specialist services including speech pathology, occupational therapy and psychology. Through a referral process, therapy provision is provided within the school setting, with a focus on working closely with teaching teams. Teachers and therapists work as a multi-disciplinary team to ensure that students have access to consistent and effective programs.

The occupational therapists provide a consultancy service to teaching teams with a focus on assisting students to achieve their potential for functional independence and gain maximum benefit from their educational program. They focus on providing assistance and recommendations to teachers for the development of functional skills and their pre requisite abilities as well as modification of environmental demands. Classroom teaching teams are supported to deliver programs which assess, teach and generalize these skills and thereby help students engage in their day to day occupations such as looking after themselves (self-care), participating in school based activities (productivity) and enjoying their leisure time (play).

The Speech pathologists provide a consultancy service to teaching teams with a focus on supporting teachers to plan and implement effective and successful communication programs for students. The speech pathology consultancy service provides assistance and recommendations to teachers in assessing the communication skills of students, developing individual goals and implementing effective communication teaching strategies. Speech pathologists will also lead a process to prescribe or re-evaluate the Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems used by students, for example the Picture Exchange Communication System or speech generating devices.

The Mental Health Practitioner will be responsible for supporting students who are over the age of twelve, and have a mental health concern identified at a Tier 3 level. A mental health concern can include:

• Direct 1:1 counselling using focused psychological strategies (FPS) to support students with mental health concerns. Some common evidence based practices include:
• Narrative therapy: assisting students to re-frame and re-author negative or troubling thoughts into more positive thoughts.
• Cognitive behavioural therapy: Reassessing the “evidence” in a situation, to assess if the negative or troubling thought patterns could be seen from a different perspective.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy: assisting students to accept that some negative thoughts and emotions are OK and that they will pass. Teaching what is important is a commitment to always act within your core values and beliefs.
• Solution based therapy: evaluating a situation and assisting the student to problem solve in a healthy way.
• Coordinate support for critical high needs students, both internal and external to the school. This can often include a collaborative approach with families, teachers, sub school leaders, therapy staff, NDIS support coordinators, psychologists, Occupational Therapists, Speech Pathologists, Child Protection and/or Family workers (I.e., Orange Door or Child Protection).

The Social Worker will be responsible for supporting the engagement and wellbeing of students requiring Tier 2 levels of supports and interventions. The Social Worker will:

• Participate in the Student Support Team Meetings (Tier II)
• Direct one to one support assisting students with social and emotional wellbeing
• Provide consultation and an authoritative professional voice, within a multidisciplinary student support team, with a specific focus on holistic wellbeing to help build student resilience and positive mental health.