The Role of the Paraeducator – Job Coach is taken from the School-Based Job Coach Training Manual, which was created by the Nebraska Department of Education – Job Coach Technical Assistance Guide.
It is a basic overview of several components, including: the role of the paraeducator, the code of ethics, the role of the Job Coach, Job Coach Responsibilities, What is Task Analysis, and What is Job Training.
As schools work to increase the vocational skills of their students, especially in the junior/senior years of high school, it is more important to make sure our paraeducators have a strong understanding of the differences between being a classroom paraprofessional and that of a job coach, if they are serving dual roles.
It is critical that the job coach/paraprofessional understand how to do a task analysis of the job(s) that the student is assigned to do, and then to monitor the student’s progress at increasing their time on those tasks. The job coach paraprofessional also needs to do a weekly evaluation of the student’s improvement of skills. Most importantly, the job coach must fade the support that they have been providing as the student masters the job skills to ensure that they become as independent as possible at the job site.
There are a wide variety of evaluation forms that can be used, and may need to be developed in relationship to the specific job. Some examples include: