How are Universal Interventions Implemented in Schools?  

Component 1: Form a Representative Leadership Team

Each building has a core leadership team that facilitates and leads the assessment and intervention activities associated with the universal intervention. The core leadership team includes a diverse representation of general and special education building faculty, staff, and parents.  The core leadership team has a number of responsibilities including:  

. Introducing building staff to school wide positive behavior support
. Involving all building staff in decision making and implementation
. Directing self assessment activities
. Identifying and defining building priorities
. Developing and monitoring interventions designed to address building priorities
. Communicating regularly with all stakeholders
. Meeting at least monthly to monitor and plan activities
. Recommending the development of policy and procedures to support SWPBS

The core leadership team should establish a mission or goal statement that guides planning and intervention activities. Questions team members might consider to establish such a mission statement may include: (a) How school wide positive behavior support fits within the building and district vision and mission statements?; (b) How will faculty and staff be involved in decision making and implementation?; and (c) How will students, including students with disabilities, parents, and community members be involved in decision making and implementation?

Effective teams establish procedures for setting up and running meetings in efficient and effective ways. School personnel can use a teaming checklist to self assess their cohesiveness as a team and guide regular meeting practices. It is important that the universal level core leadership team regularly communicates what they are doing with all members of the school community and actively solicits the opinions of these stakeholders through an ongoing feedback process.

Component 2: Conduct a Self Assessment of Building Climate

A self assessment of building climate is a comprehensive process resulting in a school centered profile that provides direction, clarity, and priority about building needs. The self assessment produces a rich mosaic of information that will help the universal core leadership team better understand stakeholder priorities and the overall behavioral needs of the school. Conducting a self assessment of the building's climate consists of surveying school stakeholders (i.e., parents, staff, and students) and conducting a building walkthrough that assesses supervision, movement, and procedures.
 
The staff, parent, and student surveys enable the team to identify climate and discipline priorities of people invested in the building community. Surveys should gather the following information from school stakeholders: (1) types of problems most concerning, (2) most problematic locations, (3) level of administrative support, (4) the environment and spirit of the school, (5) collaboration of staff, and (6) priority level of improving prosocial student behaviors.

Once the self assessment is complete, the core leadership team summarizes the data and presents the findings to the school community. The method of dissemination varies depending on the school but typically involves some combination of a presentation and written summary.

Example of a graph summarizing part of a staff survey

Component 3:   Develop a Discipline Data Management System

One of the key aspects of the universal intervention is that teams use relevant school data to inform intervention decisions. Office Discipline Referral (ODR) data provides an efficient and effective way to identify patterns of student behavior (see ODR examples).   By using ODRs, the universal team can identify "hot spots" by looking at locations, times, and types of behaviors that result in office referrals.   The discipline data management system consistent of 5 components: (1) an ODR form, (2) written procedures, (3) staff training for implementation, (4) a system for entering data, and (5) a system for querying the data base for aggregate data.   Each month, the core leadership team reviews graphs of the ODR data, and other data as needed, to determine what patterns of behavior require intervention.  

Component 4:   Design Behavioral Expectations

The universal intervention enables the school community to identify, agree upon, and document the expectations that guide student and staff behavior.   Through discussions, the self assessment of climate, and a review of the ODRs, the core leadership team identifies and defines 3-5 positively stated behavioral expectations (see example 1, example 2, other school products).   Each of the expectations are operationally defined for each area of the building, making explicit how one should behave in that setting.   Through cooperative group activities, students and staff participate in the design of these expectations so that they reflect the culture of the school.

Component 5:   Develop Student and Staff Recognition Systems

An essential component of the universal intervention is a system that increases the quantity and quality of positive reciprocal interactions between students and staff.   Having a systematic acknowledgement system offers students predictable feedback for engaging in appropriate behavior. Often we assume that students should know the right thing to do and do not need our feedback when they make good, yet basic, everyday choices about their behavior. To the contrary, since all students are still emotionally and morally developing, it is critical that we seize every opportunity to shape their behavior.   Why assume that a student knows they have made a good choice, when such ambiguity risks the formation of an unwanted error pattern.  

The core leadership team works closely with school stakeholders to develop a formal recognition system and then monitors the implementation of that system. Key components of the system include designing a systematic way to acknowledge students for engaging in appropriate behaviors. Many schools choose to design a ticket or coupon that teachers give to students after following the expectations. Students can then exchange several tickets for a desirable activity or item, or the tickets are entered into a school wide drawing for a prize. The core leadership team is also responsible for working with staff members to develop a method for recognizing staff for engaging in, or acknowledging students engaging in, appropriate social behaviors.  

See examples of student/staff acknowledgement systems (example 1, example 2, other school products)

Component 6:   Hold Regular Instructional Events to Teach Expectations

Like math, history, or science, social behaviors are learned skills that need to be taught. To promote the use of desired behaviors, school personnel implementing a universal intervention directly teach students what they expect of them in a given situation. At the beginning of each school year and then periodically thereafter as needed, instructional events are held to orient students to the expectations framework and how the expectations are applied in given settings. The instructional event is structured and includes scripted lessons that provide students the opportunity to practice the expectations in the settings where they would be applied. Throughout the day, students move to different locations participating in instructional lessons and practice opportunities.

See examples of instructional event materials (example 1, other school products).

Component 7:   Interact Regularly with the School Community

Ultimately, sustainability of the universal intervention will depend on the extent that staff begin to integrate practices into their day to day routines. To encourage adoption of universal intervention practices, the core leadership team regularly communicates with the school community both to disseminate information and solicit feedback on plans.   Involvement of school stakeholders in the decision-making and planning process increases school stakeholders sense of ownership and investment in the intervention, making it more likely that they will begin to adopt and integrate practices into their daily routines. Teams use a number of strategies to reach out to their colleagues, students, and parents including: frequent presentations at faculty and parent organization meetings, daily announcements, newsletters, small group discussions during team or grade level meetings, cooperative workgroups during inservice days, and website postings.

See dissemination examples (example 1, example 2, other school products)