Current methods to address the shortage of certified orientation and mobility specialists have either not been successful or have not kept up with the needs of students with visual impairments. This study explored the potential of an alternative method of addressing the shortage and gaps in education that it causes: training paraprofessionals to…

Social workers and paraprofessionals serve psychiatric populations at high risk for suicide, but may receive little training related to suicidality. This study evaluated a suicide awareness and prevention training workshop for providers working with mentally ill homeless and previously homeless adults. Trainees attended a half day of training, and…

Improving school climate takes time and commitment from a variety of people in a variety of roles. This document outlines key action steps that instructional staff--including teachers, paraprofessionals, and others in the classroom who provide instruction or assistance--can take to support school climate improvements. Key action steps are provided…

Described in the paper by F. Hertlein, D. Konopasek, and S. Stile are the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a 3-day workshop to train professionals and paraprofessionals about mental retardation. An overview of workshop content (including sessions on normalization and behavior management) is given, and considerations in planning,…

This report describes counselor aide training activities in the Operation Mainstream project conducted in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Northern Maine. It evaluates the effectiveness of the training program and identifies some significant and effective educational principles, concepts, and techniques. Its overall objective is to suggest a design for…

The basic approach of this manual for trainers of welfare aides is the use of the trainee's experience and the conscious analysis of it. It encourages people to look at their job performance within the framework of experiencing, identifying, analyzing, and generalizing. Hints are given as to how to develop understanding of the organization, how to…

This article provides analysis of a site-based professional development model that is grounded in teacher best practices. Developed by the administration and teacher leaders of a racially/ethnically, socioeconomically, linguistically and academically diverse school in the USA, the teacher-centered coaching model described is an example of an…

This dissertation tested the significance of a specially designed training and educational program (college course work, human development learnings, agency training) for new careerist trainees in Washington State, as compared to a strictly academic program in which people plan to enter the human services by the usual college degree route.…

This research report is concerned with paraprofessional training, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for poverty adults. The following questions represent the objectives and purposes of the research effort: enrollees' mobility orientations, and how these orientations have changed; how the role sets of enrollees influence their effectiveness in social…

As described at a 1969 conference and summarized here, the training and use of nonprofessionals in the demonstration program (1962-68) of the Dona Ana Mental Health Services, New Mexico, represented a significant change in structure, manpower utilization, and delivery system for such services. The conference itself reviewed such aspects as…

Three strategies for evaluating training programs for paraprofessional human service workers are offered. The first concerns the assessment of the differential usefulness of selection versus training of helpers. The second focuses on factors producing effective training. The final strategy entails an evaluation of the impact of systematically…

This report describes a practicum project that was intended to develop, implement, and supervise a building teacher aide training program and to determine its impact on the performance of forty building teacher aides in the Dallas Independent School District. The design of the training program was to improve the performance of teacher aides in…

The Special Education Training and Resource Center Program (SETRC) provided training to elementary and secondary school personnel, paraprofessionals, and parents, with the major goal of helping teachers provide quality instruction and augment student learning. Training for elementary/secondary school personnel focused on effective instructional…

This report of the 1974 Florida Parent Education Follow Through Program contains evaluation data pertaining to parents, children, teachers, and parent educators from 11 communities. The program emphasis is on the development of: (1) nonprofessionals as parent educators, (2) materials for family use, and (3) parents as partners in the educational…