Intended Audience: Behavioral Consultants (e.g., behavior specialists, social workers, guidance counselors, behavior analysts, school leaders, district leaders, guidance counselors, PBIS coaches, or anybody supporting behavioral improvement in schools.)

Level:  Beginner, Intermediate

Abstract:

Regardless of your title, if you are a behavioral consultant who is working in or with schools, and you are struggling and wondering why your interventions are not producing the desired results, you are not alone.   Unfortunately, those tasked with improving behavior in schools are too often left to carry the burden by themselves.  “You are the behavior person, so you take care of it,” is the unsaid mantra.  But you can’t improve behavior and the associated outcomes by yourself.  Bringing out the best in students requires bringing out the best in the educators in the classroom and school.  

One of the focuses of behavioral consultants in education should be to design strategies that accelerate and sustain good practice throughout the classroom or school.  Whether it be working with a student, teacher, or school leader, your objective should be to help those in faculty, staff, and educational leaders develop the ability to sustainably do the right thing in the right way across varied situations.  Essentially, creating good habits that are a contextual fit.  

But habits are not developed by simply telling educators what to do.  Especially when changing habits at the classroom, school, and even district levels.  It requires a systematic process for behavioral consulting. If you are a Behavior specialist of any title consulting or working in schools, and you are struggling or you’re wondering why your interventions are not producing the desired results, you are not alone.  One of the focuses of behavioral consultants should be to design strategies that accelerate and sustain good practice throughout the classroom or school.  Whether it’s working with a student, teacher, or school leader, as a behavior specialist, your objective should be to help those in education develop the ability to do the right thing in the right way across varied situations.  Essentially, creating good habits that are a contextual fit.  But habits are not developed by simply telling educators what to do.  And since the goal of the behavior consultant is always to fade out, the focus should be on building capacity.  

In the end, if you want to make and sustain positive change at any scale, you must have a systematic process for behavioral consulting to effectively and efficiently build capacity for preventing and managing behavioral challenges.  In this module, you will be provided an overview of a behavioral consulting system (your Behavioral Toolbox if you will) made up of five processes grounded in Organizational Behavior Management, or the science of human behavior for making a positive difference across students, classrooms, schools, and districts. We will then unpack the first process of behavioral consulting, Assessing, where you will learn key steps for building relationships, discovering educators’ wants and needs, getting to the root cause of performance issues, establishing realistic expectations of shared responsibilities, and more.  

Finally, you will be provided 3 practical tools to begin building your Behavioral Toolbox for behavioral consulting in education.  These tools include:

1. The Acceptance Commitment Training Matrix
2. Behavior Services Intake Form
3. Performance Diagnostic Checklist

Your background and history will determine the value you find in this course.  If you are new to behavioral consulting, there will be some things you know, some things that confirm what you thought you knew, and a number of things that will be new and helpful to you.  But even if you are a veteran behavioral consultant, equipping yourself with even one new tool or approach can help you to achieve even greater success while simultaneously making your job easier.  And in many cases, better navigating the stress and anxiety associated with your position.

What this course is

• This is a course focused on a systematic process for behavioral consulting
• This is a course that introduces learners to the concept of systems changes at the classroom and school levels.
• This is a course that unpacks the initial assessment process.
• This is a course that is grounded in practical behavioral principles and made for anybody
• This is a course that focuses on values-based approaches
• This is a course that is driven by practical behavior science of bringing out the best in educators so that they can bring out the best in the students they serve.
• This is a course that is intended to help behavioral consultants to build capacity in educators

What this course is not

• This is not a course focused on individual student assessment.  For example, FBA’s
• This is not a course focused on intervening directly with students.
• This is not a course that dives deeply into applied behavior analysis
• This is not a course that is driven by district or school policies.
• This course does not focus on the other 4 processes that make up the behavioral consulting system.  Those will follow in the next 4 courses.