Catchin' Up

So the weekend passed without putting up the Friday post, so I'm grouping Friday and Monday, together.


To be honest, not a whole lot happened on Friday.  I did the risk assessment that had been scheduled the previous day.  The student wasn't a risk to their self but was a very angry, young person.  And very suspicious of adults, so I made sure I was very straightforward.  Most of the conversation revolved around his trust of counselors since the student was going to be taken to outside counseling again by their parents.  I talked with the student about addressing the ground rules for confidentiality with the counselor so they could begin with a clear cut understanding.  Building trust with this student will be a long haul.  Lucky me...I was just assigned as the student's in-school counselor.

That was the highlight for Friday.  Today, I started my evaluation of one of my students.  I got a good way into the assessment before sending them on their way.  Then I sat in on an IEP meeting for one of my coworkers.  After that, most of the morning was shot and I had to return to the office for a Thanksgiving day party for the alternative program in my department building.  It was more a political thing than something I really felt like doing today.  On the plus side, I did get a good meal.  After this, I banged my head against a psychological report and managed to come out of it with something resembling English.  The Flesch grade level of the report was a bit higher than my usual but it was the actual simplicity of the report that drove it up, I think.

When I type my reports in Word, I run the spell and grammar check with the readability options turned on.  This gives me the percentage of passive sentences, as well as the grade level and Flesch-Kincaid reading level.  If you've never done this, you should try it.  I remember a presentation at an NJASP conference where a speaker there said you should try to keep your reports grade level at around the 10th grade.  By way of comparison, some report sample text from the  Essentials of WISC-IV Assessment (Essentials of Psychological Assessment), when typed into word and assessed came out at the 18th to 22nd grade level.  So watch out for the jargon in your reports and think about who is going to read your report: parents.

Following this I started the risk assessment write up from Friday and finished my day staring at the computer screen.