PROJECT ONWARD: NECESSITIES
Practical Methods
for Documenting Programming
Students with behavioral, emotional, or mental health challenges require specific supports to access their education effectively. As educators, we must understand that challenging behaviors often communicate unmet needs that students don't know how to express appropriately. In this thread, we explore how to identify underlying needs and implement targeted interventions that address the root causes of behavior. By aligning our services and supports with students' actual needs, we create environments where all students can engage meaningfully with learning and develop the skills necessary for long-term success.
This strand provides practical frameworks for developing need-aligned goals, implementing effective accommodations, conducting functional behavior assessments, and creating behavior intervention plans. Topics include writing data-driven IEP goals, designing individualized accommodations, understanding the function of behaviors, and teaching replacement skills. It also offers actionable strategies for collaborating with families and other stakeholders to ensure interventions are culturally responsive and consistently implemented across settings, empowering students to develop self-regulation skills that serve them beyond the classroom.
This strand provides practical frameworks for developing need-aligned goals, implementing effective accommodations, conducting functional behavior assessments, and creating behavior intervention plans. Topics include writing data-driven IEP goals, designing individualized accommodations, understanding the function of behaviors, and teaching replacement skills. It also offers actionable strategies for collaborating with families and other stakeholders to ensure interventions are culturally responsive and consistently implemented across settings, empowering students to develop self-regulation skills that serve them beyond the classroom.
PROJECT ONWARD
What's in the Necessities strand?
Aligning Interventions with Student-Specific Needs
Breaking the Behavior Code
Breaking the Behavior Code emphasizes creating effective support systems for students with emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges by focusing on observable needs rather than diagnostic labels. It guides educators through developing need-aligned IEP goals, implementing evidence-based services that address root causes of behaviors, and providing appropriate accommodations that remove barriers without changing learning expectations. The content stresses the importance of individualization, collaboration among stakeholders, and consistent implementation across settings to help students separate their behaviors from their identity while developing meaningful strategies for growth and independence.
Crafting Interventions and Monitoring What Actually Works
Behavior by Design
Behavior by Design equips educators in self-contained and alternative education settings with strategies to effectively implement, revise, and monitor Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) that are already in place for students with emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges. It covers essential components including fidelity monitoring to ensure interventions are delivered consistently, antecedent interventions that prevent problem behaviors through environmental supports, visual supports and prompting techniques, teaching replacement behaviors, and implementing appropriate consequence strategies like planned ignoring and redirection. The module emphasizes using data-driven approaches to evaluate intervention effectiveness, making informed adjustments based on ongoing observations, and ensuring that all team members consistently implement strategies to create structured, predictable learning environments that promote positive student outcomes.
Using FBAs to Hear What Students Can't Say
Behavior as Communication
Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) are systematic, data-driven tools that help educators identify why challenging behaviors occur by defining problems in observable terms, gathering data through the ABC model (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence), and determining which of the four primary functions (seeking attention, escaping tasks, gaining access to preferred items, or sensory stimulation) the behavior serves. Rather than focusing on punitive measures that address only symptoms, FBAs enable teachers to develop tailored interventions that address root causes, creating more supportive learning environments while reducing classroom disruptions and the need for disciplinary actions. This approach not only ensures compliance with educational laws like IDEA but also empowers educators with effective strategies, promotes student self-regulation, and transforms behavior management from a reactive process to a proactive system that supports long-term student growth and success.
Transformative IEP Goals for Challenging Behaviors
Breaking the Cycle
Effective IEP goals for students with behavioral challenges must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) and include five key components: present level of performance, targeted skill/behavior, specific criteria for success, conditions under which the skill will be performed, and a clear timeframe. Rather than focusing on what behaviors to stop, transformative goals emphasize replacement behaviors and self-regulation strategies, incorporating supports like visual schedules, checklists, and monitoring tools directly into the goal itself. The most impactful behavioral IEP goals connect to academic access, empower both students and staff with clear implementation strategies, and address the underlying needs driving challenging behaviors rather than just targeting surface-level compliance.