Consultation: Creating School Based Interventions

Although child therapy resources are abundant, much less common are strong instructional guides for working with parents and teachers—the adults with whom our young clients interact with daily. To be effective with children, therapists must also learn how to influence the system at a higher level; this insightful video offers compelling strategies for doing just that. Here, Drs. Jon Carlson and Don Dinkmeyer draw upon their combined decades of experience to demonstrate necessary skills for creating school-based interventions. You’ll find essential tools for working with the belief systems that govern many adult-child interactions, and discover tangible ways to support adults in making positive changes.

Carlson and Dinkmeyer introduce the video with a brief overview of key consultation theories and the skills needed to work with “managers” of the system, including alliance building and informative psychoeducation. You’ll then watch each clinician conduct a series of real consultations, ranging from meetings with individual teachers to parent-child pairs and finally, a group of five mothers. Carlson and Dinkmeyer eschew the traditional “identified patient” model so often brought to therapy, and throughout the video, they emphasize the role of the adult’s response to the child as central to effective change.

As the sessions progress, you’ll understand the underlying needs that can result in power struggles, academic problems, tantrums, and other types of child misbehavior, and you’ll find out how Carlson and Dinkmeyer address these issues in consultation. Each communicates in a collaborative, empathic way that harried adults can hear, and their practical recommendations are grounded in an intention to support children in making healthy choices.

At a time when reactivity and stress define all too many adult-child relationships, this video can help you ease family communication, support parents and teachers in owning their authority, and help build a child’s sense of autonomy. If you work with children or the adults who care for them, be sure to take a look.