Ethics and Law for School Psychologists, 8th Edition

Chapter 8 INDIRECT SERVICES I: ETHICALLEGAL ISSUES IN WORKING WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS

Chapter 8 first addresses ethical-legal issues associated with professional-to-professional consultation, focusing on teachers as consultees. As will be seen, the adoption of multitiered systems of support and response-to-intervention (MTSS/RTI) has prompted school psychologists to rethink some of our traditional ideas about school psychologist–teacher consultation. Ethical issues in working with parents are also addressed. Systems-level consultation is addressed in Chapter 9.

CONSULTATION WITH TEACHERS

The term consultation is used here to refer to “a process for providing psychological and educational services in which a specialist (consultant) works cooperatively with a staff member (consultee) to improve the learning and adjustment of a student (client) or group of students” (Erchul & Martens, 2010, p. 12). School psychologist-consultee relationships are traditionally described as having certain characteristics. First, they are voluntary, meaning that the consultant makes an informed choice to enter into the consultative relationship. However, in schools that have adopted MTSS/RTI, some consultative services may not be voluntary on the part of the teacher (Erchul & Young, 2014). Second, consultation is typically described as nonhierarchical and nonevaluative; the consultant and consultee share coordinate status. The consultee remains an autonomous professional and generally retains ...