Paraprofessionals use of group school‐based instrumental mentoring: Examining process and preliminary outcomes

Abstract

Many schools use paraprofessionals to implement and monitor interventions. Though paraprofessionals are cost-effective, many questions remain about the training and skills they need to implement a wide array of school-based interventions. In this study, we compare paraprofessionals' (i.e., undergraduates) implementation of the Group-Academic Mentoring Program for Education Development (Group-AMPED) to school psychology graduate students' implementation of Group-AMPED. Ten paraprofessionals and five school psychology graduate students provided approximately eight sessions of Group-AMPED to 35 sixth-grade students. Results indicated no significant differences between middle school students' engagement when groups were led by either school psychology graduate students or paraprofessionals. Similarly, self-reports of fidelity and supervisor postsession implementation confidence indicated no difference between paraprofessionals and graduate students' implementation of Group-AMPED. Follow-up measures indicated that mentors and proteges perceived Group-AMPED as feasible, acceptable, and understandable. Most importantly, middle school students participating in Group-AMPED had significantly higher secondsemester grades in comparison to a small control group.

Expanding School-Based Motivational Interviewing Through Delivery by Paraprofessional Providers: A Preliminary Scoping Review

“…Similarly, some studies included information about the process of recruiting and selecting paraprofessional trainees. One study that enlisted undergraduates to deliver a middle school-based mentoring program employed a referral process with professors in the university’s psychology department (Strait et al, 2020 ), while another required paraprofessionals to reach at least 90% competence/fidelity in a role play and written test before delivering services (Strait et al, 2017 ). Two other studies used a formal hiring process for paraprofessionals and included role plays in their interviews to gauge the natural communication style of potential trainees and to evaluate their natural congruence with MI.…”

“…Strait and colleagues ( 2020 ) compared paraprofessionals’ (10 undergraduates referred by psychology professors) and professionals’ (second-year psychology graduate students) delivery of a group, instrumental, school-based mentoring program for sixth graders. Prior to program delivery, all providers reviewed the program manual, viewed five online training videos, and completed a two-and-a-half hour in-person training that included a role play.…”

“…In sum, there is some empirical support (e.g., Simon & Ward, 2014;Snape & Atkinson, 2016;Strait et al, 2020) and ample theoretical support for task-shifting MI in SMH (Frey et al, 2011;Herman et al, 2021;McQuillin et al, 2019). Moreover, there are established lines of research devoted to harnessing the mechanisms of change in MI interventions (Apodaca & Longabaugh, 2009;Frey et al, 2021) and to identifying best practices in training professionals to use MI (e.g., Barwick et al, 2012;Söderlund et al, 2011).…”

“…Notably, there is emerging evidence that paraprofessional providers can help mitigate or prevent common challenges in schools, such as externalizing behaviors, using Motivational Interviewing (MI; McQuillin & McDaniel, 2021). Previous SMH work that task-shifted an academic motivation-building intervention for middle schoolers found no significant differences in student outcomes by provider type (Strait et al, 2020), and similar work shows that paraprofessionals effectively delivered the Student Check-Up (SCU; Strait, 2018), an MI-based, semi-structured intervention, to middle school students who subsequently reported increased academic attitudes, commitment, effort, and self-efficacy (Hart et al, 2022a;Strait et al, 2017). It is possible that paraprofessional-delivered supports could complement and expand services provided at all levels of MTSS (Hart et al, 2021): Paraprofessionals may (a) facilitate access to evidence-based interventions, (b) enable or enforce skills application and practice, and (c) deliver treatments .…”