Evaluate this case and answer questions.
Kyle (he/him) is an 18-year-old who is caught in a conflict between the school he attends, his wrap-around social worker (in the role of behavior specialist consultant), and the school district administration. Kyle was referred for community-based mental health services (that provide treatment in the home, school, or community) to help him succeed in his urban high school. Kyle started attending his school within the last few months. Prior to this, he lived in a cottage within a large residential treatment facility that had a school on campus. Kyle has lived in residential treatment facilities for over six years. His grandmother, who raised him (his mother was incarcerated for drug sales, robbery, and larceny charges), had trouble handling him because of his aggressive and often violent behavior. Kyle’s doctors have surmised that his behavior likely resulted from his mother’s drug use during her pregnancy and the adverse childhood events Kyle was subjected to during his early life with his mother (neglect and possible abuse). While in residential treatment, Kyle was able to decrease the incidence of his aggressive behavior dramatically, although at times he was still aggressive toward his peers and adults.
Kyle has multiple diagnoses, including fetal alcohol syndrome and attention-deficit disorder for which he was taking Adderall. When Kyle turned 18, he was discharged from his placement and returned to the community. He found an inexpensive room near where his grandmother and mother (now on parole) lived. Kyle decided that he wanted to attend the local high school. Although he had not attended public school in over five years, he stated that he felt tired of going to “dummy schools.” Still mandated to provide educational services for Kyle, the school district placed him at his local high school in a special education class designed for students who are mildly intellectually disabled.
Although Kyle is very happy being in the community high school, he is not happy with being placed in this class. He recognizes that he has “learning problems,” but he does not want to be in a class with adolescents all of whom are lower functioning than himself. After two weeks in class, Kyle became verbally aggressive with the teacher’s assistant and his classmates. The school personnel (teacher, assistant principal) began to see Kyle as having serious emotional and behavioral problems as well. They have started to believe that Kyle was inappropriate for their school. Kyle, on the other hand, sees his aggression as being a function of his placement in a classroom that is not to his liking. During a family meeting, the school personnel told his mother, grandmother, and Kyle that he was suspended from school for two weeks or until he had a one-on-one aide with him for the entire school day. The school personnel saw this as an intermediate step until a more appropriate school setting could be found by the school district administration.
A treatment conference meeting was organized by the school social worker. It included Kyle, his mother, grandmother and aunt, school personnel (teacher and assistant principal), a representative of the school district, the new aide, the school social worker, and the social worker from the community mental health agency. They met to discuss the problem and to make recommendations to the principal and the Committee on Special Education (they could not put new services in place on their own). The conflict can be succinctly stated as follows. Kyle is in conflict with the school, as he wants to return to school immediately, and does not want an aide with him full-time. The school district does not want to pay for a private school placement, and thus is not in conflict with Kyle, but with the high school representative. There is also recognition on the part of the district representative that the school’s sending Kyle home indefinitely until he obtained an aide could be viewed as a violation of his rights. Yet, school personnel did not want him back in school at all, and certainly not without full-time intensive support. The social worker from the community mental health agency who was there to advocate for Kyle (to ensure that the school was meeting his needs) was nevertheless in conflict with the school about how to handle the situation. The school social worker and the community mental health school social worker recognizes that it is the school’s responsibility to provide an appropriate educational program for Kyle and that while wrap-around services can help Kyle deal with his emotional and behavioral problems, it is the school and the school district’s responsibility to meet his educational needs.
Answer the following questions from the point of view of the school social worker who is leading the treatment conference meeting.
What strategies would you use in the group to help resolve the conflict?
What potential difficulties do you see arising during the group meeting?
What might be some tasks assigned to different group members in order to help resolve this situation?
What between-group meeting tasks might the group leader do before a follow-up group meeting?
How would you evaluate the effectiveness of this group?
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