Communication processes in school consultation

Summary

This paper describes communication processes between the Community Mental Health Service of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and the Boston public schools with regard to establishing a school consultation program, along with the difficulties encountered in obtaining sanctions for the program. Communication was hampered by stereotypes that teachers and mental health workers had of one another and by widely varying concepts of what was being requested or offered under the name of “consultation.” Gerald Caplan's definition of mental health consultation was the model adopted for use by the consultants in our program. The key issue in communication with school personnel appears to be the consultant's ability to establish and maintain a coordinate relationship with his consultees. Communications must be kept open with all significant authority figures in the school system in order to maintain sanction for the program. All consultants working in the same school system must communicate with one another regularly in order to keep abreast of significant system-wide issues and to learn of one another's successes and failures which may influence the progress of the program.