Inclusive Education
Continuum North approaches inclusive education services from a collaborative, integrated, and person-centered approach. We recognize the unique training and expertise that is required for clinicians working within the school context, as well as the rich opportunity that schools provide for working alongside other skilled professionals to support inclusive and positive environments for child development and learning.
Tiered Approach
Our services follow a tiered approach, based on best practice in the field of school-based clinical support. This includes a blend of support through universal, targeted, and individualized services. Service is driven by the 4 Cs: Building Capacity by Collaborating with educators and families and Coaching in Contexts that are important to the child. 1,2
This approach supports knowledge translation and facilitates partnerships with educators, students, and families. It moves services from a ’assess-recommend’ model to a model of working alongside students and their support people.
Interdisciplinary Team
Service delivery through inter-disciplinary teams allows for harmonized reports and recommendations, reduces the need for additional referrals, and mitigates the risk of needs going unmet.
Examples of interdisciplinary inclusive education services:
⦿ Individualized consultation, safety planning, individualized/diagnostic assessments, therapeutic services
⦿ Targeted consultations, small group interventions, targeted screening
⦿ Workshops*, universal screening, classroom-level consultation, co-teaching, staff coaching, de-escalation planning, process-development, resource and template creation, inter-agency collaboration
*See Trainings and Workshops for a detailed description
De-Escalation and Safety Planning
Through our work in northern schools we have noticed a gap in processes for supporting educators in de-escalation and safety planning. Through supporting process development, designing templates for safety / de-escalation planning, modeling strategies, and training staff, we are passionate about creating safer learning spaces for staff and students.
We take a co-regulation approach to de-escalation, with a focus on prevention through relationships and universal design for learning.
SIVA can be a valuable training to support school teams.
References
Vanderkaay et al., 2021: Tiered Approaches to Rehabilitation Services in Education Settings: Towards Developing an Explanatory Programme Theory
Craig Bennett (Occupational Therapist) in school with a TouchChat Core Board.