Environmental Supports

• Evaluation of a school service delivery model
  One of the major research projects in our lab has included the evaluation of an ecosystemic model for providing services to students experiencing emotional and behavioural problems within the schools. Children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (E/BD) are the least likely of all students with exceptionalities to be included in their neighbourhood schools. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Heath was approached by the Lester B. Pearson School Board (LBPSB) regarding the evaluation of their Family and School Support Treatment Team (FSSTT), a model for providing services to children with moderate to severe E/BD in their neighbourhood schools. The FSSTT was developed as a partnership with the Montreal Children’s Hospital Psychiatry Department and the LBPSB with the goals to (a) change the environment of the children to better support them; (b) provide necessary supports to the teachers, families, and peers to be able to better work with the child; and (c) bring psychiatric expertise into the schools. Markedly different from other programs for children with E/BD, the FSSTT does not locate the problem within the child; rather, it interprets the child’s behaviour as a reaction to a problematic environment.

  For this area of study, Dr. Heath led a team that included the LBPSB (Diane McLean-Heywood, Harriet Petrakos, Cindy Finn) and the MCH Psychiatry Department (Cecile Rousseau) to study the effectiveness of this model with a specific focus on the effect on children’s self-perceptions and emotional well-being. Numerous grants have been received CQRS, MEQ, and FQRSC to continue this work. Beginning in 2000, data was collected for five years to investigate the academic, social, emotional, and behavioural functioning of children with E/BD with and without learning difficulties in two different service delivery models (ecosystemic inclusive and regular cascade) longitudinally. In addition to the comparison of the models (Finn, Heath, Petrakos, & McLean-Heywood, 2002; Heath et al., 2004), the presence of positive illusions in regard to behavioural difficulties was investigated (Whitley, Heath, & Finn, 2008), as well as the actual process of working in a collaborative team across domains. The FSSTT is one of the first ecosystemic models for including children with E/BD in the regular school, and remains the only one in Canada.

  
  

 

 

Dr. Nancy Heath - Research Team - McGill University
Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology
3700 McTavish Street
Montréal, Québec
Canada H3A 1Y2
Tel. (514) 398-1232 - Fax (514) 398-6968
e-mail: heathreasearchteam@hotmail.com

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