Positive Behavioral Intervention Support (PBIS)

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support

This intervention was first created by a school social worker at a school in Michigan. The program offers tier I, II, and III supports for students in the classroom. It is used to help student who are suffering from anxiety, depression, constant criers, and among other distressful behaviors. If these interventions are not effective, the school social worker may switch to tier II supports. I feel this intervention is very helpful to students who are struggling with issues in the classroom. There are fees to use the intervention tool and I feel it is beneficial for the classroom.

http://www.pbisworld.com/

https://www.whyliveschool.com/?s=pbis

Teen Talk In a Jar

Teen Talk In a Jar

         A few months ago, I began working with an eighth grade student who was experiencing conflicts with peers and having difficulties making friends. When we first began working together, I had a difficult time getting the student to open up to me. The sessions would usually consist of me asking questions and the student answering with one of two word answers. I felt that this was not very effective, because I was not able to help the student if he was not comfortable talking to me. After asking my supervisor what to do, he suggested that I tried to start conversations about topics of his interest. I decided to use "Teen Talk In a Jar," to get to know the student more and see what interests him. The questions in the jar are based on the topics of body and mind, family, school, relationships, and the future. 

Some of the questions in the jar are:

• Where do you go when you feel the need to get away?
• What helps cheer you up when you're having a bad day?
• If you could take a trip in a time machine, would you travel into the future of back to the past?
• What qualities do you look for when choosing your friends?

Not only did this help the student open up to me, but I was able to learn more about the student's personal interests.

Some of the other items that are sold are: 

Therapist's Guide to Clinical Intervention: The 1-2-3 of Treatment Planning

The book, Therapist's Guide to Clinical Intervention: The 1-2-3 of Treatment Planning, has been one of the most useful books that I have used at my school internship.  This book includes a list of all DSM5 diagnosis and how to treat them based on how your client is showing certain criteria.  What’s great about this book is that it also has information on other issues outside of the DSM-5 such as Suicide, physical pain, social issues, bullying and much more.  The book also has some useful forms for all social workers.  These forms include confidentiality, suicide contracts and much more. 

Where this book is limited is that it is not specific to the school setting.  The book is more general and will give you information for all areas of social work. 

The book is compiled of best practices for each diagnosis or specific situation that a client is facing.  

All interventions in the book are evidence based.  One thing that is important with this book to know is that since it is evidence based and new research is always being conducted, it is best to buy the most current version.  

Sequin Pillow

This pillow has sequins that can change color based on the direction you rub on the pillow.  This one has black and gold.  They come in many color combinations and shapes.

This can be useful for students who are anxious or are fidgeting.  I learned of this when I was at an IEP meeting for my son.  He was rocking back and forth while trying to talk to us, so his special education teacher gave him a sequin pillow like this.  He spend the rest of the meeting sitting still and rubbing the pillow back and forth.  He was able to talk without distraction for the rest of the meeting.

I feel this could be a useful tool to have in our offices for kids with anxiety or sensory needs.  I see this useful for a student who is upset and needs something to help them calm down.

This was purchased at the store 5 Below for $5.00.

Hot Seat Activity

Although we are not implementing CBITs at Hinsdale Central, we did go to a training. Some of the activities are very helpful and I've been using them both in my individual meetings with students as well as groups. One activity in particular is the "Hot Seat Activity". It can be a group exercise, but doesn't have to be. During this activity, a student sits in the "hot seat" and can select a "coach". The student then comes up with or uses a personal negative scenario, and the goal is to produce alternative positive responses.

The coach can prompt with questions like:

• "is there another way to look at this?"
• "Even if this is true, what's the worst thing that can happen?" 
• "what is most likely to happen?"
• "Is there anything that can be done about it?"
• "has this happened to me before/how do I know this is true?"

The other activity that I've used from the CBITs training is "Steps Towards Facing your Fears". This activity aims to work towards a students fear in steps. I have used it, so far, for a school refusal student. They identified being at school as their fear (and rated it a 10 on their fear thermometer). The next step is to break it down into smaller steps to reach their fear. For example, coming in the building would be 1-2, staying for a half day 2-3, and so on.

Below is the link for the CBITs manual: it's free
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/CB200/CB209/RAND_CB209.pdf

Both activities are in the manual.

The Bully Project

Bullying is a huge issue in our schools, and as social workers, we often deal with children on both sides.  Preventing bullying from happening and developing policies to address bullying in our schools is a necessity.  The film can be used as a whole school Tier 1 intervention and can be followed by classroom discussion using materials provided by The BULLY Project at www.thebullyproject.com

The film BULLY was released in 2011 and follows the stories of children who experience bullying by their peers, the responses of the school administration and the communities.  The film has two versions. The full version is PG-13 and contains graphic language.  The shortened version is PG and is appropriate for younger children.

The BULLY Project website contains resources for parents, educators, and students.  The cost of the package with both versions and tool kit is $50 for DVD, or $38 via Dropbox.

Preview of the film BULLY

WhyTry Program

WhyTry Program

The Why Try curriculum is a program used to help students be able to answer the question “why try in life?”.  This is used in our Social Emotional Learning groups and in helping students who are having difficulties putting effort into home, school, and peer challenges.  We use this curriculum in the high school setting but I think the activities could be directed at middle school aged students.  It can address behavioral problems, dropout prevention, classroom management, and career and college preparation.

WhyTry curriculum uses 10 analogies: Channeling Anger and Challenges into Positive Motivation, the Reality Ride, Tearing off Labels, Defense Mechanisms, Climbing Out, Jumping Hurdles, Desire Time and Effort, Lift the Weight, Getting Plugged In, and Seeing Over the Wall.  These analogies use “active learning” which means the students are actively involved in the learning process.   They see and hear the analogies, music and lyrics are involved, and hands-on experiential learning activities are used.  Visual, verbal, discussion, experience, teach and share with others, application, and internalizing are all the different learning styles used for effectiveness and retention.

This program would be used in the Social Work Model area of “provide evidence based education, behavior, and mental health services” because it is a research based program implemented in a group setting.

The website offers a free sample program, the products, access to training events, and research on the success of the program.

Teaching With Poverty in Mind

Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen is a book surrounding what being poor does to kids' brains and what schools can do about it. This book was given to each staff member at my internship. The idea is that each week we are to read a chapter and then at the end of the week during staff meetings, the chapter will be discussed. The school at which i am interning has a high population of low-socioeconomic students so this book will be extremely helpful. The book goes over the ways in which poverty affects a child's brain development and how that affects their education. Each chapter demonstrates how teachers or other school staff may perceive particular behaviors of low-SES students when they have not been properly trained and how they can help better support these students. Each chapter is broken down with techniques and research as to why and how this works in the school setting. I have not read the entire book yet as we just received it in our school but so far it has already been extremely helpful!

Calm Classroom

Calm Classroom- Bringing Mindfulness to School

Calm Classroom

Calm Classroom is a resource we use at York High School in the classroom and in group sessions with our students.  It is a form of guided mediation for students with anxiety and can be helpful in getting the classroom together and more peaceful.  Calm Classroom is a way to promote mental and emotional well-being through mindfulness.  The intention of this curriculum is to use this mindfulness based tool to "manage stress and achieve emotional well-being" by activating the body's relaxation response.  Research done by those who use Calm Classroom has shown that student and teacher stress is reduced, while classroom engagement is improved. 

In my own placement, I use Calm Classroom in an anxiety and a social-emotional learning group.  I implement the practice at the start of the group so the students start with a calm and relaxed attitude.  This can be done by playing the guided mediation music or scripts, or by reading the script to the students yourself.  Some students do not enjoy the guided mediation, so instead we do our own mindfulness practices.  I always allow for a discussion after to see how the students felt about that weeks activity.

The Social Work Model area I would put this resources into would be Practice 1 "Provide evidence based education, behavior, and mental health services".  This is done by implementing multi-tiered programs and practices, in group and individual settings.

"Feeling the Breath" is an activity for the high school classroom and "Body Scan" is for elementary and middle school classrooms.

Matt and Molly Social Skills

Matt and Molly Social Skills Curriculum

The Matt and Molly Social Skills Curriculum teaches young children different social skills through the use of a 4 sentence story. The curriculum was created to be used to teach children on the Autism Spectrum, different social skills. Each story contains four different cards with a picture on each. Each picture has one sentence that goes along with it. As the facilitator shows the students the picture, he/she also reads the sentence that goes along with that picture. The students are then given a variety of questions related to the story. Depending on the skills of the students you are working with, you can use either the yes/no questions or the wh/how questions that are provided. The social worker at my placement and I, use the curriculum for two special education early childhood classes. One of the classes is lower functioning, therefore we ask them the yes/no questions after each story. The second group of students that we work with are more advanced, therefore we use the wh/how questions with them. The questions allow the students to discuss what they learned throughout the story and recognize the social skill that was taught.  

After each story, we have the students participate in an activity related to the story. After this particular story, we had the students practice the skills of turn taking and playing together, by building a tower out of blocks together. This curriculum is one that is very easy to facilitate and really engages the students. I believe that this curriculum can also be used for general education preschool and kindergarten students.

Title: Matt and Molly Play with Blocks

Skills Learned: Turn Taking & Playing with Peers

Stopping the pain - Self harm

Stopping the Pain: A workbook for teens who cut & self injure by Lawrence Shapiro

What does Self harm look like? 

--> Cutting, Burning, Hitting self/head banging, skin picking, bone breaking, biting, other.

This workbook offers activities on automatic thoughts and how to change their thinking habits, as well as coping habits that can be implemented as interventions for the student. Listed below are some sheets from the book as a preview of the workbook!

School Anxiety Strategies

School Anxiety Strategies

What to do when a student comes to your office and displays or describes physical behaviors of anxiety? Listed below is a mindfulness exercise where a student should describe 5 things about an item to help with anxiety.

Mindfulness Exercise – Notice 5 things

◦       Observe 5 things you can SEE and silently describe them to yourself in great detail.

◦       Observe 5 things you can HEAR and silently describe them to yourself in great detail.

◦       Observe 5 things you can FEEL and silently describe them to yourself in great detail.

◦       **Describe as if you were telling a person who has never seen, heard, or touched the objects before.

Next, is an anxiety kit that can be created for individuals or a group to utilize for anxiety activities for when a student is currently feeling physically anxious and displays this behavior- the activity listed above can be incorporated into the crisis kit (ex. Have a student smell the lotion and describe the scent, touch, how it looks, etc.)

Crisis Kit of Objects

◦       Scented Lotion

◦       Gum/mints/candy

◦       Fidget toy (stone, toy, cloth)

◦       Deck of cards

◦       Silly putty/play-doh

◦       Pen/paper/journal

◦       Colored pencils

◦       Activity workbook

◦       Crosswords, word searched, puzzles, hidden pictures

Anxiety Ladder – can be offered as an anxiety tool for the student to anxiety how they are feeling, at what level, and what skills they believe can help them at their certain level:

◦       Students identify different levels of their anxiety by creating an anxiety ladder.

◦       The ladder is a scale of physical sensation/urges/impulses/thoughts that students report that they experience when they have anxiety. (ex. Crying, dizziness, numbness, detached from self, tapping foot/shaking leg, fidgeting, nausea, racing thoughts, sleep problems, self-harm urges, verbal aggressive urges, impulsive behavior urges, isolation, nap/sleep, opting out).

◦       The scale is from 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst amount of anxiety that students have ever experienced.

◦       Students identify coping strategies that they feel best work for them when experiencing identified physical sensations.

This item of information can be connected to home-school-community linkages for the student and helping with anxiety.