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As the new school year begins, PAR’s team of educational assessment advisors is ready to serve your school district. We can provide sample materials, conduct onsite or virtual trainings, and provide web-enabled presentations so you can better serve your students. Plus, we can  help create a cost-effective solution for your district by leveraging volume discounts and creating customized quotes. 

Need training for your school? 

Our team is available for onsite product-specific training and can arrange author presentations. It’s easy to arrange a PAR-sponsored workshop in your area. Workshops may also be given as webinars for smaller groups or to reach several sites simultaneously. 

Want NASP continuing education credit? 

PAR’s educational assessment advisors host a wide range of presentations and continuing education workshops via the PARtalks webinar platform. Our webinars and continuing education sessions are free! If you haven’t registered for our new PARtalks platform yet, it’s easy to do! Visit PARtalks for more information and to register for upcoming sessions.  

Interested in a customized quote for your district's order? 

Simply compile a list of the products you'd like to order, and then email the complete list to your assessment advisor. We'll generate a personalized price quote for the assessment materials you need and email it to you by the next business day. Your quote will include all applicable discounts and any reduced shipping rates for which your district qualifies. 

Questions? Simply contact your assessment advisor, and they will guide you through the process. If this is your first time working with an assessment advisor, call 1.800.331.8378 for more information. 

Seeking additional school resources or support? 

Your students will always need your help with various challenges, including behavioral, mental, social–emotional, interpersonal, adjustment, and learning difficulties. PAR offers many solutions to assist you and your students during the school year. 

We're ready to help! 

 

 

 

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This week’s blog was contributed by Carrie Champ Morera, PsyD, NCSP, LP. Carrie is a licensed school psychologist and the lead project and content director at PAR. 

During in-person assessment sessions, you're in control of setting up the physical environment to make it conducive to success. When you work with children and adolescents via telehealth, specifically for teleassessment, you provide not only clinical services but also  guidance to prepare younger clients for their remote sessions. Failure to do so can interrupt telehealth treatment or teleassessment, decrease remote participation and engagement, and jeopardize the ideal conditions needed to establish rapport and build a therapeutic alliance.  

Here are 10 tips to consider as you design and maintain a working teleassessment environment with children and adolescents. 

  1. Before your first remote session with your student, let them know what to expect. Replicate what you would do during an in-person session. 

  1. Before beginning teleassessment, ensure your client has all the materials they need. We developed a checklist to help you get started, available here

  1. Provide the client with a moment to adjust after entering the assessment space. Take your time. Children may need some time to orient themselves to the virtual space. 

  1. Assess the environment. Ensure your client is in a quiet and comfortable environment, has a clear working space, and has minimal distractions. Be proactive and develop a safety plan. 

  1. Establish boundaries and expectations. Expect the child or adolescent to come prepared for the session as if they were meeting you in person. 

  1. Consider factors unique to teleassessment—for example, age. For younger children, testing sessions may need to be shorter depending on the type of task the test requires. 

  1. Openly discuss technology and platform challenges. Discuss and plan for any challenges with internet connections and anything relevant to the platform you are using. 

  1. Discuss any concerns about teleassessment. Though many individuals are comfortable with technology and using devices in general, they may be fearful or lack confidence about engaging in telehealth. 

  1. Consider your physical environment and telehealth setup. Mimic your in-person setting as much as you can. Maintain neat dress, minimize distractions, display a clean background, use sufficient lighting, and have your technology devices and materials ready. 

  1. Relationship is key! Go back to the basics. What helps you establish rapport when you're in person? Apply some of the same strategies when using telehealth. 

 

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In primary care settings, it’s essential to quickly identify health beliefs and practices that may impact an individual’s health functioning. The Multidimensional Health Profile™–Health Functioning form (MHP™-H), designed for use in health-related settings, is now available for administration and scoring on PARiConnect.  

The MHP-H consists of 69 items that provide information on five major areas of concern: adult health history, response to illness, health habits, health care utilization, and health beliefs and attitudes. Using the MHP-H can help you identify patients who may need more follow-up care, support, or assistance to  improve their long-term health outcomes.

Psychological concerns can influence a patient’s vulnerability to physical illness, perceptions of their symptoms, patterns reporting, and compliance with medical advice. Furthermore, some individuals overuse medical services. A measure like the MHP-H can help you determine who may benefit from psychosocial interventions, preventive efforts, educational programs, and support groups to improve functioning and reduce health care costs.

Research supports the use of the MHP-H for gastric bypass evaluation; it can be used to determine if dysfunctional attitudes and health-compromising habits may influence recovery or use of services.

Learn more about the MHP-H on PARiConnect now!

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This week’s blog was contributed by Melissa Milanak, PhD. Melissa is a licensed clinical psychologist and internationally recognized academic. She has extensive clinical experience providing therapy and conducting assessments with a diverse array of patient populations. 

Learning more about assessment products can improve our ability to provide the best care for our clients, patients, and students. However, continuing education can also directly relate to other professional duties, such as keeping our license current and educating trainees. 

For example, when your job is to train future providers, having accurate, easily accessible resources not only saves time but also engages trainees in new and exciting ways. PAR’s Training Portal features product-specific videos, resources, and practical applications that can provide hours of didactic support for trainees. These tools are also ideal for established providers who want to learn more about a new product or get a refresher on an instrument they might not have used recently. PAR’s Training Portal is completely free of charge and available on demand, 24/7. New content is added regularly, so it’s good practice to check back frequently for information relevant to your practice. 

You can easily put products into practice using the 40% discount we offer on training materials that provide hands-on, practical experience. With PAR’s University Partnership Program (UPP), you can determine the tests that best fit your syllabus and get access to concierge support to design your own training (including PowerPoint slides, free test kits, and products), along with student discounts and faculty research discounts. 

In addition, as a licensed provider, you must receive continuing education (CE). Though requirements can seem arduous and tedious, it’s important for you to continually learn about the tools and practices that can best help your patients and clients—and it can often be an exciting way to learn about what’s innovative and new in the industry. Even gold-standard assessments are updated and renormed as the literature grows and new insights are uncovered. The key as a provider is to balance relying on the assessments we know and love and have served us well (and helped many of our patients and clients over the years) while also keeping current with updates and edits, new product offerings, and useful new applications of our reliable tools! 

PARtalks, our webinar platform, offers a vast array of CE sessions on products and applications. Featuring experts from a variety of backgrounds and topic areas, as well as insight from product authors and knowledgeable PAR staff, our webinars cover many topics relevant to psychological practice. Check out PARtalks frequently to see what webinars are coming up and which offer CE credits. And if you miss a live session, head back to the PAR Training Portal to view a recording. 

Whether you are working with trainees or looking to further your own education on a topic, PAR offers a number of options to help you! 

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