Provide Ongoing Skill Development and Support

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Abstract
Students with serious emotional disturbance (SED) pose stern challenges to educators. The “frontline” in addressing these issues are educators who work with these students on a day-to-day basis. If these students are to achieve a greater degree of educational and social success, educators must be prepared and supported in the most effective manner possible. The reality of providing preservice and inservice education to educators of students with SED is discussed. Examples of training efforts that focused on improving the capacities and skills of and supports for educators are described. Recommendations are made for improving the preservice and inservice training of educators that specifically (a) expand models of educator supervision to include the pre-, transition, and postgraduation periods; (b) expand university-based learning to focus on the work, classroom, and school environment, rather than the university laboratory or lecture; (c) reconceptualize preservice and inservice training as an integral and collaborative necessity of the teaching profession and a shared responsibility between universities and schools; (d) consider educator and school effectiveness in terms of actual student outcomes and teacher practice; and (e) emphasize the consideration, adoption, and use of preferred, research-validated practices.