PARAPro Intro with Music Transcript:

Dawn: Hello, I’m Dawn Hendricks, Director of Training for the VCU Autism Center for Excellence.

Selena: And I’m Selena Layden.  I’m a training coordinator also at VCU-ACE.

Dawn: And we are here today to talk about PARAPro.  PARAPro is the Paraprofessionals in Autism Resources and Achievement Project.  We know through a lot of research and a lot of observations in schools across Virginia that paraprofessionals do need to be provided training.  This is an area that does come with many challenges and many barriers and we know that if they are to advance their knowledge and if they are to advance their skills we are going to have to figure out how to provide effective training to this group.

Selena: We understand that there are many barriers in training paraprofessionals and part of the goal for VCU-ACE and the Parapro project is to work with school divisions in order to break down some of these barriers and provide effective training for this really critical population working with kids who have ASD.

Dawn: The VCU Autism Center for Excellence developed the PARAPro and PARAPro is the Paraprofessionals in Autism Resources and Achievement Project.  When VCU-ACE was first developed by the Virginia Department of Education, we knew that we had to target paraprofessionals.  We knew that paraprofessionals are on the front lines every day working with our students with autism and so we really wanted to make a concerted effort to advance the training that paraprofessionals are provided and also the coaching they are given within the classrooms.  

Selena: The goals of the para project are to enhance knowledge for paraprofessionals who work with students with ASD, to help teachers and paraprofessionals implement teacher led instruction, and to help local education agencies to help prepare paras to work with this population.  

Dawn: Now House Bill 325 was passed in the spring of 2012 and House Bill 325 provided an amendment to current legislation and basically what it stated is that paraprofessionals are to receive training in the area of behavior management and this is for any paraprofessional who is working with a student with autism.  As part of this legislation it was stated that training standards would be developed which would outline basically those competencies that paraprofessionals need to master and need to learn.  So VCU-ACE has been working closely with the Virginia Department of Education to develop Training Standards.

Selena: The Training Standards were developed based on the Virginia Council’s competencies for professionals and paraprofessionals.

Dawn: Now we have taken a broad look at this idea of behavior management.  Again, that’s what’s written into the legislation and so we have defined behavior management very broadly because it’s more than just how do you respond to behavior but it’s instead what you teach the student.  So what we have looked at are the areas such as communication, social skills, independence and aptitude among many other areas that all relate back to what may turn into interfering behaviors for the student with autism.

Selena: VCU-ACE has also had the opportunity to work with the Department of Education to develop guidelines about how to implement the legislation for training for paraprofessionals.  These guidelines can also be used along with the Training Standards to help support the training that will happen for paraprofessionals.

Dawn: Now again this is not an easy task but we believe at VCU-ACE that there’s multiple layers to providing the training.  So for example, what we are providing is training as it relates to both live training and as well as online training for paraprofessionals; providing foundational information, enhancing knowledge, beginning to work on skill development.  However, we really see this as a responsibility also of the school divisions to then take it a step further so that they are provided direct training and that comes in the form of coaching.  One of the initiatives we have with our PARAPro is that we don’t see this as essentially only as a paraprofessional issue.  So while we can provide a lot of training to paraprofessionals we also see the need to provide training to teachers and to help them to understand how they can support the paraprofessionals in the context of their classroom, how they can provide time daily, weekly, monthly to provide training and coaching to their paraprofessionals.  But we also see this as an effort on the part of administrators so that they can support teachers and they can support paraprofessionals.  So this is a multi-tier issue and so that’s what we’re doing through the PARAPro is really working on training from our end but also assisting school divisions as they support paraprofessionals and provide training on their end as well.

Selena: VCU-ACE is happy to work with local school divisions to work on training paraprofessionals and answer any questions school divisions may have about this.  You’re welcome to visit our website or contact us directly.  Thank you.