NET BENEFITS
Counseling Communities Go On-Line
By Louis J. Kruger
The need for community is one of the timeless
themes of our collective history as human beings. We feel particularly
gratified when we belong to a group. It gives meaning to our lives. Prior
to the Industrial Revolution, individuals didn't have to search for their
places in communities. They were born into a community, and more often
than not died in that same community. Although the Industrial Revolution
brought unprecedented benefits, it also fractured many individuals' sense
of community. Increased mobility, the advent of metropolises, the decline
of traditional social organizations, and rapid change conspired to undermine
our sense of community.
These ideas were percolating in my head as I sat
in an airport waiting for a return flight to Boston from a convention.
It then occurred to me that it might be possible to use the Internet to
build an on-line community that met both the professional and emotional
needs of the members. During the fall of 1997, my colleagues and I began
the dual task of developing as well as studying a global on-line community
for school psychologists.
Why did we choose school psychologists? I had
previously worked as a school psychologist, and I am currently on the faculty
of N.U.'s School Psychology Program. School psychologists provide an array
of services intended to improve schoolchildren's emotional health and academic
functioning. These services include consulting with teachers and parents,
counseling children, and administering and interpreting psychological and
educational assessments. Unfortunately, school psychologists often have
few opportunities to consult with one another about these services. We
believed an Internet community might help overcome the geographic barriers
that have isolated school psychologists. Historically, the notion of community
has been linked with a physical place. We wanted to know if it was possible
to build a virtual environment that was characterized by collaborative
effort and a sense of belonging.
With the assistance of Northeastern, the Massachusetts
School Psychologists Association, and software maker Centrinity, and with
subsequent support from the New Jersey Association of School Psychologists,
the School Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association,
and Massey University of New Zealand, we pulled together sufficient resources
to launch our on-line community, the Global School Psychology Network.
The Web site at Northeastern that describes the project and recruits members
(<www.dac.neu.edu/ cp/consult>) has quickly become one of the most
frequently visited school psychology sites on the Internet.
We wanted our on-line community to operate much
like how small face-to-face communities used to work. We identified several
principles important to developing a community, such as creating a sense
of belonging, and sought to design the network around them. For example,
members have the opportunity to participate in relatively stable, small-group
discussions, referred to as neighborhoods. Each person is sent a welcome
message, encouraged to say hello to the other people in the neighborhood,
and asked to create a brief biographical sketch. Each neighborhood has
two facilitators who work to establish a friendly social climate. In building
our on-line environment, we used FirstClass, a communication and group
collaboration program that is powerful but easy to maintain.
Despite the fact that many of the members had
not met in person, most participants reported developing a strong sense
of community. Furthermore, the individuals who reported the greatest gains
in professional development tended to have a particularly strong sense
of community. Most participants also said the community met their needs
for social support and professional development. Almost half of the participants
felt that the community was either one of the best or the best professional
development experience of the year.
Buoyed by the success of the Global School Psychology
Network, Linda Ferrier of the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and
Audiology and I recently started a second on-line community, the Global
Early Intervention Network (<www.dac.neu.edu/cp/ei>). Early intervention
programs provide community-based services to infants and toddlers and their
families. These young children either have disabilities or are at risk
for delays in development.
The Global Early Intervention Network is an extension
of the faculty collaborations that began with Northeastern's federally
funded training program in early intervention, directed by Karin Lifter.
Drawing upon the interdisciplinary strength of this training program, faculty
members from the Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology
(Lifter, Ena Vazquez-Nuttall, and Eunice Shishmanian), the Department of
Physical Therapy (Ann Golub-Victor, Meredith Harris, and Nancy Sharby),
and the School of Nursing (Michelle Beauchesne, Abraham Ndiwane, and Marcia
Lynch) have all contributed to the network. In addition, representatives
from prominent early intervention agencies outside of N.U., such as the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health, are also involved in the project.
This network is intended to provide problem-solving
assistance and social support to the parents and service providers of children
in early intervention programs. Other project goals involve building a
bridge between research and practice, developing a model of Internet-based
interdisciplinary collaboration, and integrating Northeastern's early intervention
coursework with the network.
An interdisciplinary grant from Bouvé College
helped launch the project in the fall of 1999. In addition, we will be
receiving support from the Boston-based Federation for Children with Special
Needs. The network has already been used in one of N.U.'s courses on early
intervention. Among other tasks, students reviewed research articles and
Web sites related to specific early intervention topics, such as how to
communicate with children with developmental delays. The students' edited
reports were then posted on the network, where they are available to parents
and early intervention service providers.
Both of our global networks capitalize on the
synergistic potential of the Internet. The focus is on the intersection
of applied research, service, and professional training, and how the three
areas can enhance one another. The Internet is a tide that can raise the
boats of all these areas, and Northeastern is well positioned to lead this
armada. My colleagues and I are developing a model for how this can happen.
A vision of the future, however, is no guarantee
of success. The lifeblood of any community, including one on the Internet,
is the enthusiasm, commitment, and contributions of the participants. This
was poignantly communicated to me by the following e-mail message from
one of the members of the Global School Psychology Network:
"Dear Lou: As a relatively green school psychologist
(five years experience), I initially signed on to the network expecting
to gain knowledge and expertise from other, more experienced professionals.
However, months later, to my surprise, I've found my experience to be truly
different. I've discovered that I am more often giving feedback and suggestions
than I am asking for them. The revelation: wow, I really know some things!
Working in isolation, it's easy to forget the skills one has developed
. . . being on the network has enabled me to recognize the many capabilities
I have taken for granted. My confidence is soaring and, despite the end-of-the-year
madness, I'm feeling a level of job satisfaction that I once feared I would
never reach. Thanks!"
As indicated by this school psychologist's comments,
giving to others in a true community means not having to worry about what
we will receive in return.
Louis J. Kruger is an associate professor in
the Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology at Bouvé
College of Health Sciences.
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