Increasing Family Participation Through Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports

Abstract

Involving, informing, and supporting families of children and youth with disabilities has been a topic that has received a fair amount of attention since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142, 1975). Since the first iteration of the act, parents and guardians were invited and encouraged to participate in the development of educational plans for their children. An expansion of simple participation is also evident with the extension of the act to include infants and toddlers. The onus was placed on educators not only to address the individual child but also to create plans that address family needs as they attempt to provide for their child with significant disabilities through the creation of individual family service plans (P.L. 99-457, the Infants and Toddlers With Disabilities Act, 1986). Given this federal mandate, the field has responded and provided several guides focusing on the intersection between school-based positive behavior supports (PBS) and family support (e.g., Lucyshyn, Dunlap, & Albin, 2002). While the field has provided excellent work toward involving families in the PBS process at the individual student level, less is known about how to involve families across the continuum of supports promoted through a schoolwide PBS (SW-PBS) process (Lucyshyn, Dunlap, & Albin, 2002). The purpose of this chapter is to provide a suggested heuristic, building on the foundation of family supports at the individual student level, to increase family awareness, involvement, and supports across the three tiers of SW-PBS support. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of research exploring the impact of SW-PBS on family participation. The information provided in this chapter is based on work conducted at the individual student level (Lucyshyn, Horner, Dunlap, Albin, & Ben, 2002), descriptive work to date within SW-PBS, and using the basic logic of PBS.

Throughout this chapter, the fundamental logic of SW-PBS is emphasized. During the establishment of systems of SW-PBS, school teams engage in several key steps (Sugai et al., 2000). First, school teams identify and focus on “prosocial replacement” behaviors versus creating lists of offenses and consequences. Second, teams clearly define expected prosocial behaviors in response to local problems and guided by acceptable norms. Third, school teams develop clear and explicit instructional steps and practice activities to teach students how to meet expectations. Finally, school teams develop a mechanism to provide feedback to students and to acknowledge and celebrate mastery of key expectations.