Psychological services: From the school staff's point of view

Abstract

Gradually public school programs have tended to broaden their scope of responsibility to include, in addition to academic growth, a deeper concern for the individual's personal and emotional development (Wrenn, 1962). Reflecting this trend, in 1957 the Lucas County Board of Education (Ohio) with the financial assistance of the Ohio School Foundation Program, employed its first school psychologist and initiated a program of psychological services in the county school district. The Ohio training and celtification requirements for school psychologists have, for the most part, formed the general framework in which this service has developed. A psychologist was seen as one who conducts individual diagnostic evaluations, studies the results obtained, and then assists appropriate school personnel and parents in the formulation of educational and environmental plans to aid the child. During its seven years of operation, the orientation of psychological services has remained relatively unchanged, although the amount of service to the districts has increased. The staff has reported to the school on request and has maintained no administrative authority. The school psychologist has worked on a consultative basis, to provide information to the teacher to strengthen the role she plays in the education of the children. The ultimate responsibility for carrying out therapeutic plans within the school setting, however, rested with the pupil's teacher, principal, and counselor. With an assignment of .this type, the school psychologist's effectiveness depended upon his ability, not only to facilitate the adjustment and growth of the individual child through the use of psycho-diagnostic techniques, but also upon his skill in impressing the school staff with the import of this knowledge and judgment in relation to understanding children and their management. If so much depends on the voluntary cooperation of the school staff in carrying out the recommendations of the psychologist, their attitude toward the service can, in effect, predetermine the effectiveness of that aspect of the program. The views of Combs and Snygg (1959) are reflectedhere, i n that the teacher's opinion of the service is, for all intents and purposes, what that teacher feels is real--not necessarily what others might identify as being the actual situation. Evaluations of the effectiveness of psychological services, if limited to a review by central staff members or by self-