Schoolwide PBS in Early Childhood Settings

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School-wide PBS in Early Childhood Settings

• Paula Baumann
• Coach, Guidance Counselor Prescott Early
  Childhood Center
• Trainer Iowa Behavioral Alliance

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Positive Behavior Supports

• System-wide Positive Behavior Supports is a
  comprehensive initiative (in 3000 schools) that
  helps schools prevent and respond effectively to
  behavior problems.
• PBS schools create safe and predictable
  environments with a common culture and language.
  The emphasis is on teaching children how to be
  successful.

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Early ChildhoodWhats the difference?

• 1. Differences with children
• Developmental stage,
• Vocabulary,
• Attention span,
• School experience,
• Type of misbehavior,
• Amount of school experience,
• Development of identity as a student.

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Early ChildhoodWhats the Difference?

• 2. Families
• Parents more likely to be involved in
  school/program,
• Children more dependent on parents for basic
  needs,
• Important for staff to recognize cultural
  (including socio-economic) differences.
• Huge opportunity to make long- term differences
  for families.

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Early ChildhoodWhats the Difference

• Program
• Teaching social-life skills is a major part of
  the mission,
• May not document office discipline referrals,
• Staff may have differing levels of expertise and
  longevity in the program.

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Early ChildhoodWhats the Difference

• Program cont.
• Very likely to include Morning Meeting/
  Community Circle and a number of rituals,
• Use of songs, rhymes, puppets, and play.
• May or may not have the same amount of resources
  to respond to challenging students. (AEA staff,
  problem-solving teams, collaboration with
  community agencies, etc.)

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Early ChildhoodWhats the Difference

• Early intervention with emerging behavior
  problems is more likely to have long term success
  than interventions done with older children!

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Early intervention

• Problem behavior is the 1 reason students with
  disabilities are removed from school, home and
  work settings.

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Early intervention

• If anti-social behavior is not changed by the end
  of grade 3, it should be treated as a chronic
  condition similar to diabetes.

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Positive Behavior Supports

• Prevents much problem behavior by creating an
  environment with a common culture and language
  that is predictable and consistent.
• Focusing on teaching the skills to children so
  that they they can be successful.
• Allows staff to respond effectively to
  challenging behavior.

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Six Major Ideas

• 1. Build Multiple Systems of Behavior Support
• 2. Invest in Prevention
• Different systems for different challenges
• Build a culture of social competence
• Define, teach, monitor, and reward appropriate
  behavior
• Define, monitor and correct inappropriate
  behavior
• 3. Start with Administrative Commitment
• Top 3 Goals, Administrator on team, 80
  commitment
• 4. Use Team-based Implementation
• No new resources (working smarter)
• 5. Adapt procedures to fit the context
• Implement sustainable practices and systems
• 6. Collect and use information for
  decision-making

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Tertiary Prevention Individualized Systems for
Students with High-Risk Behavior
CONTINUUM OF SCHOOL-WIDE POSITIVE
BEHAVIOR SUPPORT
5
Secondary Prevention Targeted Systems for
Students with At-Risk Behavior
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Primary Prevention School-wide/Classroom/ Non-cla
ssroom Systems for All Students, Staff, Settings
80 of Students
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Practices and Systems for School-wide Behavior
Support

• Practices
• Define expectations
• Teach expectations
• Monitor expected behavior
• Acknowledge expected behavior
• Correct behavioral errors (continuum of
  consequences)
• Use information for decision-making

• Systems
• Admin Leadership
• Team-based implementation
• Defined commitment
• Allocation of FTE
• Budgeted support
• Development of decision-driven information system
• Formal policies

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So what does it look like in early childhood
settings?

• Define and Teach expectations
• 3-5 memorable expectations that are
  understandable to young children.
• (But will they be too abstract?)
• Staff refers to expectations throughout the day.
• Children will build on their understanding of the
  concepts over time.

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What does it look like?

• In addition to the 3-5 expectations- Early
  Childhood programs are likely to have specific
  skills to teach
• Social skills (How to greet someone, how to
  follow directions, how to get the teachers
  attention)
• School procedures (clean up, lunch, lining up,
  restroom, putting coat away)
• Social/emotional (conflict resolution, making
  friends, talking about feelings)

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Teaching skills

• Make no assumptions that children have these
  skills when entering program.
• Skills are taught both systematically and
  throughout the day in teachable moments.
• By embedding the language and deliberately
  teaching the skills to all students, behavior
  problems are prevented and time is saved.

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What does it look like?Ways to teach
expectations

• Songs
• Puppets
• Stories
• Pictures
• Role plays
• Rhymes
• Visuals
• ?????

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Practices and Systems for School-wide Behavior
Support

• Practices
• Define expectations
• Teach expectations
• Monitor expected behavior
• Acknowledge expected behavior
• Correct behavioral errors (continuum of
  consequences)
• Use information for decision-making

• Systems
• Admin Leadership
• Team-based implementation
• Defined commitment
• Allocation of FTE
• Budgeted support
• Development of decision-driven information system
• Formal policies

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What does it look like?Monitor and acknowledge

• Staff look for students to demonstrate those
  specific skills/procedures that have been taught
  and provide positive reinforcement.
• (Praise statements 5 to 1 ratio to corrective
  statements.)
• Program-wide reward/acknowledgement system
  (specific) increase the rate of staff positive
  statements and helps students identify
  appropriate behavior.

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Correcting Behavior

• Social errors are responded to the same as
  academic errors
• Teach or re-teach skill
• Model
• Practice
• Monitor
• Reinforce

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Office Discipline Referrals

• A system is developed to document (form
  developed) behavioral incidents requiring a child
  to leave the learning environment.
• Data maintained (systemically using SWIS or other
  program) and shared with teaching team.

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Use of data

• Office discipline referral data
• Identifies students needing targeted or
  individual interventions,
• Identifies aspects of program that may trigger
  more behavior problems (times of day, locations,
  activities, types of behavior or skills to
  teach)

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Collaboration

• Interventions for young children with behavior
  challenges are best done by collaborating with
  family and other community entities.

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Systems sustain practices

• Administrative leadership,
• Establishment of a team (meets regularly,
  maintains records, uses information)
• Data collected and shared, used for decision
  making,
• Teaching of language/skills embedded in program,
• Response to behavior challenges made systematic,
  use of office discipline referral process,
  collaborative team looks at function of behavior
  to create individual plan.

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Teams

• Create a team to discuss issues of student
  behavior.
• Additionally, action teams are formed to
  identify what and why is happening for a
  struggling child. This team develops
  interventions.
• Who should be in on the discussion? What
  information is needed?

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PBS makes a difference !

• Early childhood is the perfect time to address
  issues of behavior. We can literally save a
  childs life.
• Data shows that discipline problems are reduced.

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Prescott video

• The video Prescott Behaves II can be viewed on
  the Dubuque Community School website.
• Prescott is an early childhood center in downtown
  Dubuque.