Teaching · Related Services

Questions about what is already working.

Choose the listener and the kinds of question, from best hopes to the next small step. The library words each one for a younger student, an older student or an adult, with the student’s own goal written in.

Build a question set What you get

$12one-time · every device you sign in on

Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Related Services toolkit, $99 for 159 items.

The question set

One record per student and session; add each scale rating as you go. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Related Services$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with: Numbered questions in session order with the goal written in, a closing, the time to allow and the scale ratings over time.
Who it is for: School counselors, school psychologists and school social workers.
Format: Browser builder. One saved record per student and session; printed with its questions or as a blank form; CSV of the scale ratings; export and import a file.
Access: $12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Related Services toolkit ($99) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The Related Services space in Caveat Teaching.
Support: Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

Drawn for this page. Scaling questions ask where things are now and what one point higher would look like, rather than what went wrong.

How to use it

Ask the student for the goal and write it in their words.
Turn a goal about stopping something into what they want instead.
Open with best hopes and keep the scaling question for every session.
Follow the answers; the list is a guide, not a script.
Record the scale rating and what the student said made the difference.

Build a question set

What the library covers

The approach

Solution-focused brief counseling, from the work of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, asks about the future the student wants, the times it already happens and the next small step, more than about the history of the problem.

Why scaling every time

A 0 to 10 rating takes a minute and shows change from one session to the next in the student’s own terms. Asking what keeps it from being lower points to what is already working.

What it is not

The library is not therapy and not a risk assessment. It is a set of questions for a conversation a trained school professional leads.

Sources

de Shazer, S. (1988). Clues: Investigating solutions in brief therapy. W. W. Norton.
De Jong, P., and Berg, I. K. (2013). Interviewing for solutions (4th ed.). Brooks/Cole.
Murphy, J. J. (2015). Solution-focused counseling in schools (3rd ed.). American Counseling Association.
Franklin, C., Trepper, T. S., Gingerich, W. J., and McCollum, E. E. (Eds.) (2012). Solution-focused brief therapy: A handbook of evidence-based practice. Oxford University Press.

The example student, goal and ratings are made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.