Description
by Dennis H. Reid, Marsha B. Parsons, and Carolyn W. Green
This book describes an evidence-based approach for quickly training front-line staff in human service agencies and schools how to teach meaningful skills to people with severe disabilities. The approach, training-to-teach, was initially developed and validated through a series of research studies. Training-to-teach was then evaluated further as it was applied on a wide-scale basis to train over 1,000 staff in educational, residential, and community settings.
Research and application have shown that training-to-teach meets essential criteria for successful staff training programs in terms of its effectiveness, efficiency, and staff acceptance. The competency- and performance-based nature of the approach, involving both classroom and on-the-job training components, has consistently resulted in staff trainees acquiring skills to teach learners with severe disabilities to perform multi-step, functional tasks. The approach is efficiently carried out with groups of trainees through a “hands-on” process by staff trainers, typically requiring less than one work day for completion. Staff participants in training-to-teach have reported very favorably about their training experience, with over 99% indicating they would recommend the training to their colleagues.
The authors, who developed and successfully applied training-to-teach with hundreds of staff, provide step-by-step detail for equipping readers to quickly train staff how to teach. The program is readily applicable within typical settings serving people with severe disabilities such as school classrooms, group homes, adult day-support settings, and residential centers. Readers can use the information provided to prepare front-line staff to teach people they support so that individuals with severe disabilities develop skills to live their lives as independently and desirably as possible.