TY - JOUR
T1 - Educational psychologists as advocates of children in out of home care : an innovative program model that empowers young people and the adults who support them
AU - Mainwaring, Debra
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Life Without Barriers, a specialist foster care agency, are funding a Collaborative Education Program in partnership with Edmund Rice Education Australia Youth +. This paper aims to share some of the practice that gives a voice to the children and young people who have experienced trauma, abuse and neglect and have been placed in out of home care. Casework illustrations serve to reveal how the voice of the child is included in measures of participation, well-being and achievement that inform their Education Support Plans. Given the evidence of the impact of trauma on language development non-verbal methods of monitoring are used to explore the child's perceptions of: what context is most likely to engage them using the Preferences for Activities for Children flashcards and pictorial Likert scales; how their attachment to the carer is developing using video recordings of structured play sessions with carers; sandtray and symbol work when creating trauma narratives; and iPad applications to scaffold emotional expression, social problem solving, transition planning and literacy and numeracy interventions. The program model is limited by recent government financial cutbacks in addition to the scarcity of educational and developmental psychologists in Queensland and its expansion to a national model requires a creative, facilitative model of leadership and strategic social investment in the local community.
AB - Life Without Barriers, a specialist foster care agency, are funding a Collaborative Education Program in partnership with Edmund Rice Education Australia Youth +. This paper aims to share some of the practice that gives a voice to the children and young people who have experienced trauma, abuse and neglect and have been placed in out of home care. Casework illustrations serve to reveal how the voice of the child is included in measures of participation, well-being and achievement that inform their Education Support Plans. Given the evidence of the impact of trauma on language development non-verbal methods of monitoring are used to explore the child's perceptions of: what context is most likely to engage them using the Preferences for Activities for Children flashcards and pictorial Likert scales; how their attachment to the carer is developing using video recordings of structured play sessions with carers; sandtray and symbol work when creating trauma narratives; and iPad applications to scaffold emotional expression, social problem solving, transition planning and literacy and numeracy interventions. The program model is limited by recent government financial cutbacks in addition to the scarcity of educational and developmental psychologists in Queensland and its expansion to a national model requires a creative, facilitative model of leadership and strategic social investment in the local community.
KW - educational psychologists
KW - foster home care
KW - psychic trauma
UR - http://handle.westernsydney.edu.au:8081/1959.7/uws:47613
UR - http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=94136217&site=ehost-live&scope=site
M3 - Article
SN - 0267-1611
VL - 31
SP - 101
EP - 123
JO - Educational & Child Psychology
JF - Educational & Child Psychology
IS - 1
ER -