The team meeting
The team meeting is a continuation of the problem solving process begun at the pre-referral stage. It is a time for those who work with the child in all settings, and those with relevant knowledge that can help, to come together with the child and parents to discuss and plan appropriate support services. It is important to keep in mind that the focus is problem solving and that the child is at the center. The team need not be a large group. Its membership can vary from time to time. Small groups may include a community health nurse, a parent and a child; a special education teacher, classroom/subject teacher and the parent, or a social worker, child management specialist, parent and child sitting together for 20 minutes .
When multiple service providers are involved a more structured and longer meeting may be needed initially. However, it is important to keep in mind that large meetings can pose certain problems and should be avoided when possible.
Every attempt should be made to keep the number small and the meetings efficient. To avoid large numbers efforts should be made to collect information from those who might not need to attend. Several persons from one agency for instance may not be necessary and in such circumstances, arrangements should be made to obtain their input in other ways (e.g., written report, phone call, teleconference).
Conversely, a larger group, a more structured meeting and/or a longer time frame may be needed in certain situations and usually for the initial meeting about a child.
What happens at a support services planning team meeting?
After the support services planning team meeting
If the meeting follows the procedure described previously, most of the ISSP should be complete by the end of the team meeting. It is especially useful to record directly on the ISSP form during the meeting whenever possible since this eliminates the need to rewrite the ISSP after the meeting.
During the meeting, the following components of the ISSP would have been written:
- the child's strengths and needs
- the priorized goals
- supports and services (educational, health related, human resource and employment and/or justice services)
- responsibility areas
and when necessary the kinds of approaches, strategies, resources, and environments, etc. which will be used. More information on each of these components is contained in Section Three (p. 35).
After the meeting, the individual team members
with responsibility for implementing the ISSP need to complete the specific portion
related to their service. For example, an occupational therapist should use the ISSP that
comes from the team meeting to develop his/her therapy plan. School/board office
personnel, usually the special education teacher and relevant classroom/subject
teacher(s), get together to complete the teaching portion of the ISSP which will
incorporate the contributions of the other team members. Similarly a social worker and a
child management specialist will utilize the goal statement to generate their detailed
action plan. All members will need to complete the following:
Once this has been done the ISSP is complete. It should be kept in the child's confidential file and only shared with the parents and those individuals who have responsibility for implementing the ISSP, unless the parents and/or child have given written permission otherwise.