The State Improvement Grant’s Goal 2 focuses on developing and implementing positive behavioral support systems in select schools across the state of Arkansas using Project ACHIEVE as its evidence-based foundation.  It also emphasizes the development and implementation of integrated community-based and school-based mental health models and services. 

Project ACHIEVE’s Positive Behavioral Self-Management System (PBSS) involves student, staff, school, district, and community-wide programs that build and reinforce (a) students’ interpersonal, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills, resilience, strength, and capacity so that they can academically and behaviorally succeed;  (b) schools’ positive, safe, supportive, and consistent climates and settings; and (c) collaborative partnerships from school to home to community.

There are six primary areas needed for any successful Positive Behavioral Self-Management System:  (a) the development of student and staff skills that result in students demonstrating prosocial interpersonal, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills; (b) the development of teacher, grade-level, and building-wide accountability processes that provide students meaningful incentives and consequences that motivate their prosocial behavior; and (c) the development of staff and administrative consistency such that student behavior is reinforced and responded to (when inappropriate) in a constant fashion.  Beyond this, an effective Positive Behavioral Self-Management System moves beyond student-focused and classroom-oriented concerns to include (d) analyses of setting-specific (e.g., cafeteria, buses, playground) and peer-specific (e.g., teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, and fighting) “special situations;” (e) crisis prevention, intervention, and response management; and (g) family and community outreach.  Critically, this System provides services at all three levels of prevention—for ALL students, for SOME students who need strategic interventions, and for the FEW students who need intensive or crisis-oriented services.

Positive behavioral support systems have been shown to increase (a) schools’ positive climates, (b) staffs’ ability to successfully maintain and teach more students in regular classroom settings, and (c) students’ academic engagement and social and academic success.  The integrated community- and school-based mental health services that are provided for “intensive need” students have been shown to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of treatments and services needed by these students, and to increase levels of behavioral and therapeutic success for these students and their families. 

A last coordinated part of this SIG Goal is a Parent Mentoring and Outreach process whereby parents across the state receive training and support in home-based social skills and positive discipline approaches.  Using the Stop & Think Parenting Program and DVD, this outreach especially targets parents of children who have students with disabilities and/or behavioral and mental health needs.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINKS:

Expanded Description of Goal 2 Goals and Outcomes

A Diagram/Logic Chart of Goal 2’s Goals and Activities

Project ACHIEVE website                 Project ACHIEVE Fact Sheet

Project ACHIEVE Technical Assistance Papers 

School-based Mental Health Services—ADE Special Education website