Positive Behavioral Supports

The Behavioral Instruction linked to Behavioral Assessment, Intervention, and Self-Management Component

...focuses on developing, implementing, and sustaining comprehensive Positive Behavioral Support Systems in every participating school.  Using Project ACHIEVE's evidence-based Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS), this whole school approach involves students, staff, administration, and parents building and reinforcing:

1. Students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills and interactions;
2. Positive, safe, supportive, and consistent school climates and settings; and
3. School and district capacity such that the entire process becomes self-sustaining.

Thus, “Self-Management” occurs at three levels:  Student, Staff and School, and System and District.

CLICK HERE to Link to Project ACHIEVE's Positive Behavioral Support Electronic Books

Project ACHIEVE Outcomes for this Component:

• Positive School and Classroom Climates and Interactions
• Increased Use of Effective Interpersonal, Social Problem-Solving, Emotional Coping, and Conflict Prevention and Resolution Skills by Students
• Decreased Levels of Teasing, Taunting, Bullying, Harassment, Hazing, and Physical Aggression
• Increased Academic Engagement, On-Task Behavior, Independent Work Skills, Cooperative Learning, and Self-Management by Students
• Effective Classroom Management Strategies by all Teachers, and Increased Collaboration relative to Discipline, Behavior Management, and School Safety

Positive Behavioral Support Tools and Resources

    The ultimate goal of Project ACHIEVE’s Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) is to facilitate all students’ social, emotional, and behavioral competency and self-management. 

Click here to listen to a FREE national interview with Howie (September, 2012) on "School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management"

Click here to view tools and resources for your use.

Project ACHIEVE's Six PBSS Domains

Project ACHIEVE's Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) is composed of six domains that are implemented at the Prevention, Strategic Intervention, and Intensive Need/Crisis Management levels.

The domains involve:

1. The direct instruction of Social Skills for all students in the classroom by general education teachers with the support of other mental health professionals for more challenging students;
2. The development and use of school-wide Accountability systems that specify expected student behavior, connected with positive responses, incentives, and rewards, and "intensity levels" of inappropriate behaviors, connected with evidence-based responses and interventions that help decrease or eliminate these behaviors while establishing and increasing appropriate behaviors; and
   
   1. Increased Staff Consistency and Confidence in Responding to Students with Challenging Behaviors
   2. Decreased Discipline Referrals to the Office, Suspensions and Expulsions, Special Education Referral and Placements for Behavioral Reasons
   3. Increased Parental Skills and Support, Reinforcing Students' Prosocial Behavior
3. Staff, setting, situations, system, and strategic Consistency relative to social skills instruction and student accountability;
4. Special Situation Analyses and interventions, as needed, for a school's common areas and for incidents of teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, and fighting;
5. Crisis Prevention, Intervention, and Response; and
6. Community and Parent Outreach and Involvement, which should occur across all five of the other domains.

When Students Do Not Respond to PBSS Preventative Approaches

When students do not respond, behaviorally, to the preventative strategies within the PBSS domains above, functional assessment is conducted and linked to strategic behavioral interventions that are designed to resolve identified behavioral problems and/or to improve staff?s related instructional and classroom management procedures.

These interventions focus on the specific referred problems exhibited by students (e.g., not completing homework, noncompliance, swearing, threatening others) or the specific behaviors that teachers need to demonstrate to support effective classroom management processes (e.g., providing advanced organizers or appropriate instructional feedback, reinforcing appropriate behavior through differential attention, maintaining consistency).

If more intensive/crisis management approaches are needed, multi-disciplinary assessments are completed, and interventions are developed using available district- and community-level experts and resources.  Wrap-around services, as needed, are integrated into the process, as are home-school and home-school-community strategies.

Throughout this process, Project ACHIEVE helps staff to increase their skills in behavioral observation, data collection, consultation, intervention, and intervention evaluation strategies and techniques.