 
Week 2 - Healthy School Communities
|  | HARK in the Scout Hall: A Success Story |
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Listing of Papers | |
MR MICK SHEEHAN
Tasmania, Australia
IN A PAPER delivered to the 1998 ASPA Conference in Hobart, Canadian psychiatrist, Dan Offord, defined a 'casualty class of children'. These children suffer from early-onset emotional and behavioural problems, associated learning problems and early school failure.
As they proceed through their development years into adolescence, members of the casualty class are at increased risk of dropping out of school, and for illegal drug use and abuse. In many instances, the onset of these disorders heralds a lifetime of serious psychosocial difficulties.
Offord estimated that between 18% and 22% of children from ages 4 to 16 have clinically important levels of emotional and behavioural problems, and are potential candidates for the casualty class. A casualty class, as defined by Offord, exists in Australian schools. Whether or not it is at a similar numerical strength to the North American situation is a moot point.
Offord also contends that children with one disorder are at increased risk of other disorders. For example, in children with conduct disorder, almost half qualify for a diagnosis of hyperactivity, and a third for emotional disorder. Further, children with emotional and behavioural disorders are at increased risk for other troublesome conditions such as chronic medical illness, poor school performance, suicidal ideation and drug abuse. This suggests that a vast gulf exists between the mental health of ordinary children and those who qualify for inclusion in the casualty class. It might also suggest that the treatment of the casualty class in school should be markedly different from the treatment of ordinary children.
School-Based Intervention Optimal
Offord goes on to say that behavioural difficulties occurring in the school are most likely to respond to an intervention centred in the school. The strategy to reduce the burden of suffering from child psychiatric disorders should be seen as consisting of a number of concurrent steps. First, the context of the intervention efforts should be a civic community (supportive school environment). Second, effective universal programs should be in place (social skills teaching for all). Targeted programs should follow for those not helped sufficiently by the universal programs.
The Casualty Class in Australia
Most Australian schools have instituted at least two of the three concurrent programs advocated by Offord. Thus they are constituted as civic communities and have in place universal social skills programs for all students. Many Australian schools also have the third program in Offard's triad: targeted social skills programs for the casualty class.
These programs are valued in schools because they greatly benefit individual students and the general school community. However, some schools still find a number of children, mainly from the casualty class, with challenging behaviours that disrupt the educational program for all students. It seems that for this group of students something more is required than the three elements described by Offord.
Current equity theory requires all students to be offered an education in their local school, usually often in heterogeneous class groups. But when psychiatric disorders manifest as challenging behaviour, as they often do, they detract not only from the learning of the child with the disorder but also from the learning of other children in the same class, and sometimes also from the safety of other children in the same school.
This juxtaposition of theories and actualities produces a significant dilemma for many schools: how to provide a proper learning program for children who continue to display challenging behaviours, whilst not detracting from the learning opportunities of other students.
What are Challenging Behaviours?
What are challenging behaviours? First of all, they are not the traditional episodes of 'normal misbehaviour' typically engaged in by many adolescents as they test the boundaries of authority and the quest for self-assertion and independence. These 'normal misbehaviours' are part of growing up, and schools and parents usually have mechanisms and procedures for dealing with them in a productive manner.
The types of behaviours described by the term 'challenging' range from periodic episodes of physical violence to ongoing physical and psychological harassment, including sexual and sexist harassment, to constant hyperactive and aggressive behaviour. These behaviours curtail learning in the classroom and deny security in the playground. They also represent a significant violation of the rights of other students, particularly in the areas of physical and emotional safety and opportunities to learn.
Typically, a student with challenging behaviour does not respond to the standard discipline techniques employed by schools and persists in refusing to accept direction from teachers and other members of staff.
Our Experience at Sorell
Our experience is that students with challenging behaviours generally do not benefit from full inclusion in regular classes or from full participation in normal playground activities. When they are included, they need individual support and supervision from teachers or suitably trained para-professional staff.
Even when this is in place, part-time schooling seems to work best for many of these children. We may ask why this is so.
Also, in our experience, the presence of large groups of other adolescents seems to have the effect of making children with a behavioural disability excited and hyperactive. This reinforces and exacerbates their challenging behaviours. Thus the audience effect, which stimulates many adolescents to occasional extravagant behaviours, seems to have a vastly intensified effect on those with an established behavioural disability.
This intensified effect further curtails the learning opportunities of those with behavioural disability, and also the learning opportunities of other students in the same class.
Small Group Experience
It is also our experience that students from the casualty class who exhibit challenging behaviours can often learn successfully either one-to-one with a teacher or tutor or in very small groups. It may also be best if these small groups include some students without challenging behaviours. Some secondary schools have responded by developing off-site and part-time programs, in which members of the casualty class with behavioural disability work in small groups under less stressful conditions than prevail in regular school.
Four Kilometres Away
In our own school, small groups of students spend time working in the local scout hall which is about four kilometres away from our school. We call this program HARK, Helping At Risk Kids. One teacher manages it, with occasional support from senior members of staff. Some students only attend this program, some attend at both HARK and regular school. For all students this mix is fluid and subject to change.
The HARK teacher is also assisted by para-professionals. Part-time work placements are often an integral part of this process. A general aim of HARK is to encourage wider community involvement in programs to deal with challenging behaviours.
Community Project Involvement
Within the HARK program, students continue with basic work in literacy and numeracy. They also undertake small community projects, such as gardening. Excursions are offered as rewards to the whole group for work well done by the whole group. Programs which aim to help these students manage aggression and make appropriate choices about behaviour (the targeted programs referred to by Offord) are part of HARK.
Once these students significantly move towards managing their challenging behaviour, and making appropriate choices, they can gradually be reintroduced into the regular school situation, often on a part-time basis. Such transition usually requires the provision of tutors or aides to help them manage their behaviour, and to ensure that the learning opportunities of other students are not compromised.
Opposition to Alternative Programs
It has often been argued that to take some members of the casualty class out of the regular classroom or school to an alternative off-site program is inequitable because it denies them interaction with 'normal' children and risks them receiving a second-rate education. It has also been suggested that the prime motivation of alternative programs is to get students with behavioural disability out of the school and out of mind - to dump them. These objections can be adequately addressed if the ultimate aim of alternative programs is re-introduction to more regular schooling, at least on a part-time basis. However, we need to also ask if it is equitable to place members of the casualty class of children in a learning environment to which they are unsuited and which will almost certainly cause them to fail with their learning. The equity rights of children who are frustrated in the traditional classroom because of the challenging behaviours of others also needs to be given due consideration.
Tutors and Teacher Assistants
Community volunteers, parents or otherwise, play an important role in our alternative programs. Paid para-professionals, often drawn initially from the ranks of the volunteers, also play an important role. Extra adults working with the group provide more opportunities for the children to find a sympathetic adult with whom they can relate. And these programs are firmly anchored in establishing warm and productive relationships between caring adults and casualty class children.
The adults also supply support to each other and reinforce the adult values of the group. One of our adult volunteers, who was previously a member of the casualty class, has proven to be particularly valuable in the program. Her ability to understand the experiences of the children and to speak their language has been a valuable aid in establishing a relationship of trust. The community volunteers are valuable role models who can add hope and optimism to the often dark worldview of the casualty class of children.
What do Students Think About HARK?
What does our casualty class think about the HARK program? Here are some comments:
'Really good, I can get my work with ease and I look forward to coming to school.'
'I like it better than school.'
'I can get more help when I want it . . . I can do better work.'
'I don't get in as much trouble.'
'I've done more school work here than I've done all year.'
'I do not get real angry there.'
'You get to have Milo.'
'I get more help from the teacher because there isn't as many kids.'
Preferred Learning Styles
We have found that some other groups of students also prefer an alternative program approach to learning. This may be partly explained by some of the theory relating to preferred learning styles. Each individual may have a preferred learning environment, as well as a preferred learning style. Perhaps learning environment is part of learning style. The classroom, either in traditional or even radical configuration does not suit all learners, and is becoming problematic as a universal solution.
This has often been argued in the context of new information technology. The casualty class, with its particular needs, also challenges the traditional notion that one shape of program delivery fits all. A uniform mode of delivery is also not consistent with respecting the unique value of each student. We don't need to provide a wide range of new learning outcomes but we do need to be much more creative in providing a range of ways in which to deliver current outcomes, particularly to students uncomfortable in the traditional classroom.
We need to take a more multicultural approach to curriculum delivery with the alternative programs we have taken for the casualty class, pointing the way for alternative programs for other minority groups of students.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr Mick Sheehan is Principal of Sorell School, in Tasmania. Sorell is basically a K-10 school with a small VET unit for Grades 11 and 12. It has an enrolment of 1,000 students. Mick is in his 10th year as Principal of Sorell. Previously, for 4 years, he was Principal of Latrobe High School in the north-west of Tasmania and before that he was an assistant principal for 10 years at Rose Bay High School, in Hobart. Mick commenced teaching in 1963 and, apart from 18 months in the Commonwealth Public Service, he has spent all of his working life in schools. Mick's recent professional interests have included middle schooling and reworking the educational program for Grades 9 and10. As a representative of the Australian Secondary Principals Association, he was a foundation member of APAPDC. He continues to take a particular interest in the professional development of principals and of those who aspire to be principals. His outside interests include sailing, bushwalking, live theatre, trad. jazz, red wine and, hopefully, motor cycling.
Mick Sheehan can be contacted by email at:
msheehan@postoffice.sorell.tased.edu.au
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