“Support 4 Teachers works with organizations who want to increase the effectiveness of their education professionals so they can maximize learning in the classroom.”

• What do teachers consider the biggest barrier to academic success of their students?
  BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS!

• Of all factors that disrupt the learning process in the classroom, what do teachers complain about the most?
  BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS!

• When asked, what do teachers identify as the most important professional development topic they need year after year? BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS!

Support 4 teachers will help your school district ensure that programs and services are aligned with best practice, state standards and local school district’s needs and constraints with a focus on increasing students’ behavioral and academic success. We offer the following services, tailored to the specific issues facing your schools, today!

BEHAVIORAL CONSULTATION
Support 4 Teachers provides behavioral consultation to schools working with children and youth that present seriously challenging behavior. Our behavioral consultation services are designed around positive behavior supports and are grounded in evidence-based theory and practice. This is a critical feature for school districts seeking to implement defensible and economically feasible programs. Since the ultimate goal of behavioral consultation is to produce lasting and durable supports, an essential component of any intervention is to sustain change. Our behavioral consultation staff will assess the learning situation, clarify the goals and objectives and provide an analysis and plan of action. We then implement the recommendations from the behavioral consultation through an action plan and help identify measurable outcomes. Success is measured by the degree to which the teaching staff learns the skills, consistently implements them and SUSTAINS the progress and changes long after the initial meeting with Support 4 Teachers behavioral consultation staff. 

TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Support 4 Teachers offers teacher professional development experiences that go far beyond attending single workshops. Our effort in teacher professional development prepares educators to apply research to their settings and decision making. We provide educators with the knowledge and skills to collaborate. Coaching, modeling and mentoring are proven to be more permanent solutions for teachers struggling to provide the highest quality educational experience possible. Since teacher professional development improves the learning of ALL students, administrators should demand that all efforts in this area be driven by data to determine adult learning priorities, monitor progress, and help sustain continuous improvement in areas that have been identified as district goals and priorities.  Quality teacher professional development focuses on the following:

• Understanding and appreciating all students.
• Creating safe, orderly, and supportive learning environments.
• Foster high expectations for student academic achievement. 

Initially, schools focus on developing school-wide systems that are intended to improve the culture and climate of the school. These are considered to be Primary or Universal Systems change and are applied to youngsters and adults in the educational community. These school wide systems are designed to predict and prevent future discipline problems from occurring.

Once Universal Interventions have been established, Secondary Interventions are developed for students who are not responding to Primary Prevention efforts and need additional supports.  These interventions, based on the Universal Preventions Foundation, are designed to reduce current problems by implementing quick and efficient strategies, thereby re-establishing an optimal learning environment. Our Behavioral Consultation will provide school buildings and districts creative and effective models that can be implemented quickly and efficiently. This includes many different styles and types of programs or interventions and the development of easy data collection and analysis systems which can be applied to groups of youngsters, but are not as intensive or time consuming as individualized behavior plans.

If a child’s behavior is dangerous, highly disruptive, or significantly interferes with the ability of others to learn, Tertiary Strategies are necessary in order for the educational environment to be restored.  The Positive Behavior Supports approach has successfully addressed these issues when applied to a wide range of student characteristics, including autism, emotional disturbance, etc. These tertiary interventions are much more effective when based upon primary and secondary systems. They require individualized behavior management strategies based upon an EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA). Once conducted, the functional behavior assessment leads to a multi-element Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) that is not only designed to decrease challenging behaviors, but increase adapted and academic behaviors as well. S4T Behavioral Consultants are highly qualified, highly skilled, and provide superior modeling and support in this area. This is a critical feature for school districts seeking to implement defensible and economically feasible programs. Since the ultimate goal is to produce lasting and durable supports, an essential component of any intervention is to sustain change.   

When Universal and Secondary supports have not been successful in reducing a student’s seriously problem behavior, it’s time to conduct a functional behavior assessment and create an individualized behavior intervention. This frequently means that a student’s behavior is dangerous, highly disruptive, or significantly interferes with the ability of others to learn.

While traditional approaches are reactive when attempting to eliminate behavior problems, a functional behavior assessment is conducted in order to write a multi-element behavior intervention plan that addresses the problems proactively, before they occur. It allows us to look at behavior IN THE CONTEXT in which it occurs. Typically, the behavior and the culture or context of the school is not congruent. By teaching new, alternative behavior, changing the environment or context, reinforcing the absence of the behavior, and predicting when the behavior is most likely to occur, challenging behavior can often be eliminated without the need of negative consequences or punishments.
The components of a functional behavior assessment include the following:

• Target behavior description.
• Antecedent analysis.
• Consequence analysis.
• Functional hypothesis statement.

Many functional behavior assessments done routinely in the school are written primarily to respond to “paperwork” mandates in federal and state regulations. Unfortunately, they are not, in themselves, very FUNCTIONAL for the school team. Support 4 Teachers has conducted hundreds of functional behavior assessments and has taught this process to hundreds of educators. We believe that this is a necessary part of developing effective and efficient behavior intervention plans. The process for a successful functional behavior assessment includes the following:

• Prioritizing  behavior concerns.
• Identifying and writing a target behavior in discrete, observable and measurable terms.
• Conducting student observations IN THE CONTEXT IN WHICH THE BEHAVIOR OCCURS.
• Conducting a general review of all current and historical academic and behavior records.
• Interviewing teachers, support staff, parents, and students (when appropriate).
• Collecting behavior baseline data.
• Review and analyze antecedent, consequence and baseline data.
• Develop a functional hypothesis that identifies if the youngster is trying to gain access to or escape/avoid an interaction, activity, or sensory experience.
• Complete a detailed behavior intervention plan.

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Behavior management strategies must be easy for teachers to implement and take data on the effectiveness of the strategies. Most behavior intervention plans are reactive; that is, they address the problem behavior once it has occurred. Support 4 Teachers provides plans that include proactive behavior management strategies.

Have you ever implemented behavior management strategies that were effective, but a new problem behavior, perhaps even more difficult to work with, started occurring? That’s because your behavior management strategies only suppressed the original problem behavior, not solve it. We seek to answer the question “why”. What does the youngster “get” or “avoid” by demonstrating the behavior; what NEED does he or she have that the problem behavior meets. Once we have an idea of “why”, we can try to teach that youngster how to meet his or her need with more appropriate behaviors. Or, we can help the youngster learn new skills that will result in the need being reduced or eliminated.

We recommend unique, individualized behavior management strategies in a behavior intervention plan that has four pro-active components, and one reactive component:

• Skill instruction: what needs to be taught.
• Contextual changes: changes to the environment and context in which the behavior typically occurs.
• Strategic differential reinforcement: rewarding the NON occurrence of the problem behavior.
• Anticipatory Responses: what to do when the behavior is ABOUT to occur to avoid the problem.
• Reactive strategies:  what to do when the problem behavior occurs.

The characteristics of the response to intervention model include the following:

• Response to intervention  is a universal screening of academics and behavior for all students.
• Response to intervention involves multiple tiers of increasingly intensive interventions.
• Response to intervention seeks to provide differentiated curriculum-tiered interventions.
• Response to intervention uses research-based interventions.
• Response to intervention requires continuous monitoring of student performance through benchmark or outcome assessments.

Response to intervention is not

• Only for specific students.
• Only for specific teachers.
• Only for specific classrooms.
• Special education services.
• Another name for intervention assistance teams.

Support 4 Teachers consultants are experts in assisting buildings to develop and maintain a successful response to intervention process.