Are PARA PROFESSIONALS being trained? If NOT ~ WHY NOT?!!

I am curious if your child has his or her own 1:1 Unique Aide or Para Professional, do YOU know as a parent IF your Child's Aide has actually ever taken any real Training to work with your Child on a daily basis? How would you know? Who do you ask? What kind of training IF they did get any training? Who provides the training IF a training were available? Lots of questions many of us parents have, yet they never get answered..... UNLESS you are a persistently pushy parent like myself and dig deep to find these sorts of things out! I didn't have to go far....I found so much great info on our very own school district ESE Department / FIN Department webpage! It's 'hidden in there'.....but it's there!! I am posting this story in light of all the terrible terrible things that happen to our wonderful children that need the most support to be successful at school.

What has happened in the Hillsborough County School District this past year should never ever should have happened to even just ONE STUDENT! Let's make sure ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE TRAINING those that work with our Children with Unique educational, medical, behavioral and emotional needs. Let's HELP our STAFF HELP our STUDENTS be successful!

What I found from my personal research is this; FIN~Florida Inclusion Network is the department within Broward County School District that's in charge of these types of Para Professional training. They also have a couple of BECON TV Video's that are suppose to go along with the actual training manual. 

How often are the Para Professional's suppose to 'renew or update' their training? ...that I couldn't tell you. If someone is going to be working with your Child, starting from the very first day of school, are they required to take any training before meeting and working with your Child everyday? I would HOPE SO because in one of the video's it even mentions that YES they should! ...but again that I can't tell you. What I CAN TELL YOU is this; that our FIN rep CAN TELL YOU IF your Child's Aide has ever taken the Para Professional Training. If you find out your Child's Para simply has never taken this most basic & simple Para Professional training, can we ask that they do take it? I think we can, we just need to ask the Principal or one of the Assistant Principals that's in charge of the Para Professionals on your Child school campus. Ask if they could please make sure the 1:1 Unique Aide that works with your Child please take the training provided by FIN, in Broward County Public Schools. It should be that simple!

I am posting the actual Para Professional Training here  below in my post, so everyone can see that it's a pretty nice training and the 2 video's that are provided on BECON TV, that are suppose to go along with the FIN training are also pretty good. Are they DISABILITY SPECIFIC? No they are not, but if your Child has some Disability Specific things that need to be known, I don't see why the Principal wouldn't approve of you the parent, that knows your Child the very best to TRAIN or be allowed to talk to the very person that will be the person working with YOUR CHILD everyday....if not....WHY NOT? Why wouldn't the school want the parents of those unique children that need the support of a 1:1 Para Professional provide some basic training to that staff person hired to take care of OUR Child. After all aren't the parents the one that knows that Child the best? If our schools WON'T ALLOW parents to talk to and help make sure the HIRED STAFF know what the heck they are really doing to HELP our Child, I would have to ask......WHY!? I don't think the parents are going to charge the school any money to help TRAIN THE AIDES that will be working with our Children. Why wouldn't the school want to know what the parents have to say? This would be just like parents going over a few things with 'the babysitter' before going out for the evening. How should this be any different? Unless the person hired to work with MY CHILD actually had a Child with the same unique 'special needs'.....which you and I know is very unlikely! Then I would say they need to listen up and pay attention to what the parents would like to be able to share and say to the staff person that will be fully 100% in charge of MY CHILD each and every day when he or she is at school under the school districts care. 

"Paraprofessionals and Inclusive Classrooms" 

"Paraprofessionals are vital members of the support team. "The Paraprofessional's Role in Inclusive Classrooms" is an interactive video resource for paraprofessionals supporting students with disabilities in general education classrooms. The video and print materials were created by West ED, California Department of Education and California State University in San Diego. The video provides introductory information on the roles and responsibilities of paraprofessionals who are supporting students with disabilities in general education elementary and secondary classrooms."

Above was taken from Broward's ESE Department webpage. Click highlighted to go directly to their webpage if you want.

Florida Inclusion Network (FIN)

Supervisor: Gwen Lipscomb

Facilitator: Barbara Krakower

E-mail: barbarakrakower@browardschools.com
Phone Number: (754) 321-2200

Click Here for: 
The PARA PROFESSIONAL MANUAL ANSWER KEY . All the ANSWERS are inserted into the blank spaces. The answers are actually pretty good! I LIKE this Manual and the Answer Key! What it's training is actually pretty good! Now IF we could only make sure ALL our Para Professionals are ACTUALLY TAKING THIS TRAINING the way it was intended! The school administrators and other staff member should be involved in this training as well, a school wide training...why not!? This way it's across the board that there are MORE STAFF that have taken this fabulous training as well. The more that know the information and content of this absolutely wonderful training, the better for more of our Children that we entrust to our schools with protecting and taking care of every school day!

PARA PROFESSIONAL TRAINING MANUAL without the answers inserted in the blanks.

Para Professional's Role in Inclusive Classrooms Part 1* 
Introduction to Inclusion* 
Your Role as a Paraprofessional* 
Working as Part of a Team* 
Communication* 
Social Relationships* 
Teaching New Behavior* 
Positive Reinforcement* 
Challenging Behavior*
Para Professional 
TRAINING VIDEO #1 



Para Professionals's Role in Inclusive Classrooms Video #2 
Introduction(to part 2)* 
Overall Considerations* 
Instructional Strategies* 
Materials and Adaptation Development


Para Professional 
TRAINING VIDEO #2

An ESE teacher, ESE Specialist, or Administrator may choose to facilitate a discussion at the end of each BECON Video Part 1 & 2 to provide supplemental information or information specific to the student being supported. 

For the sake of the safety and support that many of our Children / ESE Students need in order to be successful in school and with their education, I hope this DS Advocate BLOG POST today HELPS many many people, parents, teachers, principals and most of all....Let's get our Para Professional / 1:1 Unique Aides TRAINED!!!! 

PERIOD

*If you are a Principal... 
~ DO THE TRAINING YOURSELF SO YOU KNOW!
*If you are a General Education Diversified Teacher... 
~ DO THE TRAINING YOURSELF SO YOU
 KNOW!
*If you are an ESE SPECIALIST at your school... 
~ DO THE TRAINING YOURSELF SO YOU
 KNOW!

*If you are the staff person hired to work with MY CHILD with Unique Learning, Medical, Behavioral, Emotional Needs... 
~ DO THE TRAINING YOURSELF SO YOU KNOW!