Incredible Years Teacher | Questions and Answers

Restraint - questions and answers

Eligibility questions and answers

  • Can teacher aides (TAs) and education support attend the programmes? Teacher aides can attend PB4L initiatives, this is part of a July 2020-July 2021 TA professional learning and development  (PLD) pilot and accordingly schools can apply for teacher release funding for attending TAs. NZEI website detailing teacher aide PLD to be added here soon. IYT (Helping Children with Autism) is not specified in the PLD, although, the suite of IY is mentioned. The pilot does not include education support staff. Eduation support staff can attend, however, there is no funding for this workforce. Some group leaders deliver an “introduction to IYTCM” for those TAs and other support staff who are interested in the programme. This interest can come about after seeing classroom teachers implement behaviour plans. Other group leaders include senior management and senior teachers in the programme. 
  • Can unqualified teachers attend the programmes? Unqualified teachers can attend, however, depending on the region, funding may not be available. Refer to PB4L Advisor for your region.

In principle there is benefit to teacher aides, education support staff, senior management, senior teachers, teachers of older chlidren attending the programme. Prioritisation of attendees is something group leaders need to consider. 

  • Do attendees have to have attended IYTCM first before doing IYT (Helping Children with Autism)? Not necessarily – this is a case by case decision. A teacher of a child whose parent is doing IYP is a priority for the Helping Children with Autism programme and may not have done IYTCM. Generally, it is ideal if teachers do IYTCM first. Principles applied in decision making have been, a) is a parent doing the parent programme, b) do teachers who have not done IYTCM agree to the additional reading and other activities to bridge the gap of not having done the IYTCM programme, or c) do teachers have plans to complete the IYTCM programme following the Helping Children with Autism programme
  • Only one group leader of a dyad.wishes to attend peer coaching. Does this happen, is it okay? It does and peer coaching of one part of the dyad will be of value, the ideal scenario is for the dyad to attend peer coaching. 

 
Digitalistion questions and answers

  • Is the digitisation of reports, evaluations, and pre- and post- data forms planned?… The ministry of education are working on these digitalisations
  • Can vignettes be access online to reduce returning to the main menu to play each vignette?… Paid annual subscriptions are available to order on IY website https://www.incredibleyears.com/order/
     

Content and Process

  • What are examples of the cultural content being used in programme delivery? Lisa Herewini's presentation - demonstrates cultural tailoring of the IYP programme by IYP Mentor. IYT group leaders may find it useful. 
  • Could we use the video coaching sessions as up-to-date realistic vignettes? Introduction of any new material, including vignettes, would be a change made only by the programme developer, Carolyn Webster-Stratton. 
  • How can this programme be adapted to meet the needs of our current teachers, with respect to cultural diversity and the modern learning environments? More to come on our response. Consider viewing IYP Mentor Lisa Herewini's presentation. In additionally the ministry of education are discussing the request for NZ vignettes with Carolyn. Finally, Werry look forward to offering fidelity workshops to support disussions on such questions in the future.  
  • A highlight for teachers attending the programmes is the discussion and connections made with other teachers. Is it possible to consolidate the delivery of each Workshop allowing more time for teachers to visit participants' classrooms with a IYT GL??Ultimately there are issues with consolidating the content, and in reality the restraints on people's time would make this difficult, with experience showing low uptake when extra time is added. More to come on supporting attendees valued connections being made during the programme and the shared learning.          

Vignettes

  • How can IYT (Helping Children with Autism)  vignettes and Incredible Beginnings vignettes be accessed (for use in IYTCM programmes) without having to buy the whole programme? It would be great to have access to updated vignettes.  These are available online by subscription on the IY website https://www.incredibleyears.com/order/
  • Has the IYTCM programme vignettes been updated three times? We were wondering what vignettes are being referred to in ‘Using the Video Vignettes most effectively’ when they say ‘have been updated three times’ in the document. What is the latest version? Is the latest version 2010? See Jamila's reply below.
  • Can the ministry of education support the funding of the purchase of the latest online vignettes? Group leaders will need to organise their own subscription.

Jamila’s reply:

Yes, the 2010 is the latest update.  For the Time Out day, I find the agenda outline very useful to guide leaders in the selection of vignettes and in the order that they should present the material.  The main thing to keep in mind is NOT to start with vignette 1-7.  Page 20 of the PDF below has this outline (the page numbers at the bottom of the page say 62, but it's the 20th page in this document). You will see that morning: Item F. says to start with vignette S-31.  All the recommended vignettes are S vignettes. These are filmed more recently than the original program vignettes and are closer to what we want teachers to do for TO (not perfect, but good). 

You'll see the very last item on the page Afternoon C: suggests showing vignettes 1-7 and discussing how to improve on these. These are very old vignettes and if you do use them, you would use them mostly as examples of TO that need to be much improved--in most cases, I suggest that group leaders skip these and use the S vignettes instead. https://www.incredibleyears.com/download/resources/teacher-pgrm/Agendas…

Time to Calm Down

  • “Time Away to Calm Down” How are group leaders managing situations where the school wide practice is ‘exclusion from his/her classroom’, i.e. the child is sent to another room?  Is this what the ‘School Wide’ programme recommends? Currently there are guidelines in development which will be disseminated. Schoolwide practice allows all programmes that are evidence-based, so not just IY, and there is no recommendation of one programme over another. 

Assessment 

  • Do we need to be doing the pre and post data forms?  Yes, these are important for measuring the impact of the programme. 
  • What happens to the pre and post data form information? National office collates the data and is provided to the ministry of educaiton leadership team on request.