For a while we have been supporting free professional learning sessions for Education Support staff in schools. This group of professionals are at the ‘coal-face’ when working with young people with additional needs and are always interested in new strategies to help them carry out their work.
Once again, we were overwhelmed with the response with more than 40 joining us in the very full room on the day.
Chris Murray (Berendale School) opened the session with an overview of their approach to career development.
Emma McCarthy from WeSupportU presented on Functional Behaviour Analysis to Support Inclusion. It was so satisfying to see the engagement in the room from the start, the connection that people had with each other’s experiences and the thirst to improve knowledge.
Here are some of the comments from attendees on the day:
• Thank you – wish we had all day
• As always, this PD has been very useful and so much more valuable because of the given scenarios
• Emma was a wealth of knowledge! Gave many tips to help with the kids I work with
• Great to hear about FBA practices – gives a concrete framework
• Will be using Competing Behaviour Pathways
Emma’s presentation is now available at https://www.bgkllen.org.au/resources/
What I personally took away from the session was how diverse the student behaviours are that Education Support staff experience and how valuable the strategies such as those explored by Emma in the session are for these professionals to carry out their day to day work.
So, thank you to everyone who attended – and a big thank you again to Emma McCarthy and Chris Murray and to Berendale School for providing such a great venue for the PD and for organising the catering for us.