A collaborative-interactive model for mental health consultation: Teacher inservice education by psychiatric clinicians

Primary prevention of emotional disorders is often cited as a goal in community mental health consultation. The daily contact with children and parents by the classroom teacher can yield effective prevention, if the teacher is appropriately prepared to act as a resource, and by clinicians given an awareness of emotional difficulties in children and their parents. Though consultation is often described as facilitative of change, typically discussions of such programs emphasize technique rather than content. Presented here is acollaborative model based upon a didactic input of humanistic psychology, upon which educator and clinician draw as they become allies in pursuit of answers to questions raised in current examples from the teacher's classroom experience. Excerpts and results of the model's effectiveness are given.