National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs
Grant No. H326130004
The OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) was initially funded in 1998. In October of 2013 a new five-year funding cycle was launched. The purpose of the new Center is to define, develop, implement, and evaluate a multi-tiered approach to TA that improves the capacity of SEAs, LEAs, and schools to establish, scale-up, and sustain the PBIS framework.
Logic for a Center on School-wide Positive Behavior Support
The logic for the Center is based on (a) documented need for improving the social behavior of students in U.S. schools, (b) demonstrated success of PBIS to improve both student social behavior and academic performance, (c) demonstrated effectiveness of PBIS as a practical technology that can be implemented at socially important scales by actual implementers, (d) the value of school-wide behavior support systems on the education of children with disabilities, and (e) a current need to extend PBIS practices to a broader range of students, schools, and contexts.
The Center (a) provides the technical assistance to encourage large-scale implementation of PBIS; (b) provides the organizational models, demonstrations, dissemination, and evaluation tools needed to implement PBIS with greater depth and fidelity across an extended array of contexts; and (c) extends the lessons learned from PBIS implementation to the broader agenda of educational reform.
New Elements to Familiar Content
School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports is a framework for improving the effectiveness and equity with which schools deliver educational and social supports. The core features of PBIS have not changed over the past decade. The emerging shift is in the integration of basic behavioral supports with social/emotional, mental health, academic and juvenile justice supports. PBIS is becoming an organizational rubric for school reform. The present iteration of the TA-Center on PBIS features three major themes:
- PBIS Content: The content of PBIS is becoming more refined, specific and accessible
- Measures: To both make PBIS implementation more self-managed, iterative and sustainable there are measures of both fidelity and impact that allow schools, districts and now states to determine the effects of implementation efforts, and target more specific support needs.
- Compression Implementation: We propose with this iteration of the TA-Center on PBIS a three prong approach to implementation of effective interventions. The three prongs come from (a) local demonstration of implementation effectiveness, and wide-spread recognition of need, (b) a national network of materials, tools, measures, and training opportunities that allows efficient access to substantive content, and (c) federal funding to states and districts to implement effective practices. The rationale is first that if local schools and districts see the value of PBIS, and ask to adopt PBIS there will be pressure and initiative to scale up PBIS adoption. Second, the adoption of PBIS will vary and flounder without a national network of trainers, researches and administrators who retain a continuous focus on effective, efficient and equitable procedures. The third part of this process is policy and fiscal support for implementation not of a specific practice, but of a framework that results in core features documented to benefit children and families. The next five years will mark the first time these three elements of implementation have been available at the same time. The hypothesis is that together the elements create pressure from bottom up, top down, and within a capsule of consistency and efficiency.
- Renee Bradley, Office of Special Education Programs
- George Sugai, University of Connecticut
- Robert Horner, University of Oregon
- Tim Lewis, University of Missouri
External Evaluation Team
- Dixie Jordan, Pacer Center
- Gwen Cartledge, The University of Ohio
- David Mank, Indiana University
- Robert O'Neill, University of Utah
- Bob Algozzine, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte
- Susan Barrett, Mid-Atlantic PBIS Network, Sheppard Pratt Health System
- Hoon Choi, University of Kansas
- Lucille Eber, Midwest-Illinois PBIS
- Brigid Flannery, University of Oregon
- Jennifer Freeman, University of Connecticut
- Heather George, University of South Florida
- Steve Goodman, MiBLSi
- Patti Hershfeldt, Mid-Atlantic PBIS Network, Sheppard Pratt Health System
- Kristine Jolivette, Georgia State University
- Don Kincaid, University of South Florida
- Kathleen Lane, University of Kansas
- Amy McCart, University of Kansas
- Kent McIntosh, University of Oregon
- Bob Putnam, The May Institute
- Michele R. Rovins, AEM (Applied Engineering Management) Corporation
- Brandi Simonsen, University of Connecticut
- Jeff Sprague, University of Oregon
- Mark Weist, University of South Carolina