Consultation and Education Services help the school community and educators to understand behavior management strategies and to improve the school climate and environment to encourage appropriate behavior among students. Frequently, the C&E will facilitate a school behavior management team that draws on the skills and expertise of principals, teachers, school psychologists, counselors, special education staff as well as family members and community leaders.
Behavior Management Plan
Working with this team, the C&E can help the school develop a school-wide behavior management plan to enable children to learn skills to manage their behavior and to help the school create and maintain a cooperative learning environment for students, staff and parents. The plan provides concrete consistent expectations for individual student behavior and may include:
a code of behavior;
reference textbooks and supplemental reading materials which address effective education, values and social and emotional development;
a blueprint for socialized or structured lunch time and recess;
plans for after school and weekend programs;
roles and responsibilities around transitions within and between schools; and
an outline of family and community involvement in the school behavioral health plan.
Consultations
The C&E can also provide direct consultation to individual school staff to help them respond appropriately to the challenges presented by an individual child. The goals of this type of consultation are:
to assure an appropriate response to a child, based on his or her strengths;
to maintain the child in the regular classroom; and
to enhance the skills of the school staff member by helping them work through the problem as it occurs.
Training Program
The C&E will also work with school staff to assess training needs and develop a training and skills-building plan designed to help school staff and families support the achievement of the school behavior management plan. Elements of such a training program may include:
Understanding Pathology
Managing Extreme Behavior
Defining and Recognizing a Crisis
Defusing vs. Exacerbating Crises
Understanding and Utilizing the Referral Process
Understanding and Creating Developmentally Appropriate Classrooms
Understanding and Facilitating Developmentally Appropriate Behavior
Understanding and Facilitating a Whole School Behavioral Management Program
Recognizing the Signs and Making Referrals for Substance Abuse, Physical Abuse and Neglect
Developing Sensitivity, Tolerance and Cultural Competence
Providing Targeted Individual and Group Interventions for drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, suicide prevention, eating disorders, impulse control disorders, and grief management, peer mediation, conflict resolution, grief counseling, etc.
