Consultation, Collaboration, and Coordination
Consultation, Collaboration, and Coordination tests indirect service delivery - how you work through and with adults. Items describe a teacher, parent, or agency situation and ask for the most effective consultative move.
Models to recognize
- Behavioral consultation: problem-solving and data-based. Define the behavior operationally, collect baseline data, design an intervention, monitor, and fade support.
- Mental health consultation (Caplan): client-centered (about a specific student), consultee-centered (about the teacher's skill or confidence), program-centered (about a system).
- Collaborative or ecological consultation: shared expertise, with family and cultural context included.
Core rules
Share only what the partner needs to know; FERPA still applies, and teachers do not automatically receive counseling content. Obtain consent before contacting outside providers, and document referrals and follow-up. Coordinate through MTSS teams, IEP and 504 meetings, and community agencies; clarify roles in writing when agencies overlap. Family engagement is two-way: ask what the family already does, arrange interpretation and flexible meeting times, and avoid deficit framing. The teacher owns classroom instruction; you own the counseling program.
Worked example
A teacher reports a student sleeping in class and asks, 'What did he tell you?' You do not disclose counseling content. Instead you reframe: define the behavior by frequency and time of day, gather baseline data from the teacher, check health and sleep factors, schedule a student check-in, and reconvene in two weeks to review data. If the pattern holds, the team escalates to Tier 2.
Traps
Trading confidential details for teacher cooperation; agreeing to fix the student without data; contacting a therapist or physician without parental consent; ending consultation without follow-up; ignoring family voice in IEP and 504 decisions.