This study examines an Educational Psychologist's (EP's) experiences supporting the service delivery of paraprofessionals. Central to this is an evaluation of the utility of a training and evaluation model delivered to a group of paraprofessionals, Home School Support Workers (HSSWs) who support service users (families) experiencing difficulties related to pupil wellbeing, attendance and behaviour. The study also examines their perceptions of their role and efficacy generated in a series of focus groups, as well as the views of service managers (HTs) and service users gathered using semi structured interviews. These were subsequently analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Twenty HSSWs participated in training to develop Solution Focused (SF) work. (de Shazer, 1985,1988,1991 and 1994). Many EPs in the UK apply the approach and train others in it (Ajmal and Rees, 2001; Rees, 2005). However, outcome studies from educational and community contexts in the UK are limited and have been recommended as a priority for EPs (Stobie, Boyle and Woolfson, 2005). The SF model was extended by the researcher to incorporate an evaluation model, Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) (Kiresuk and Sherman, 1968). GAS was developed in mental health settings to support programme evaluation i. e. the success of service users in achieving goals which have been co-constructed with support workers. This study is therefore also an exploration of a novel unification of two approaches (SF and GAS) to create a combined intervention and evaluation model suggested in the literature as potentially of utility. (Frederickson, 2002; Stobie, et a! 2005). The findings lead to a range of recommendations regarding the potential utility of the model in informing the evidence-based work of EPs, and others, delivering services. A range of findings relating to the experiences and perceptions of the participants are also reported
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:532865 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Thomas, Miles |
| Publisher | University of East London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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