Supporting Positive Behavior Through Natural Development and Social Learning

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While choosing a strategy to use is important, knowing how, when, and by whom the strategies are going to be implemented are just as important. When this evidence-based intervention, it includes every environment each student is in which means that it relies on parents and community partners as well as school staff. As the school district only has control over its schools and staff, the district will be implementing positive environment education and connecting with community partners and parents to assist in creating these positive environments throughout the community. The acceptance of those with positive behavior and natural rejection of those that do not show anti-social behavior will create safe and nurturing school and community environments. The school district will implement education and instruction for school staff, teachers, and administrators that parents, community members and leaders, and private and public community partners will be invited to. This instruction will focus on how staff should behave to be respectful and responsible as well as how to instruct students to behave and clearly state what is expected of them in their academics and behavior. One of the clearest issues related to bullying that should be a topic addressed by the school’s comprehensive multi-tiered behavioral framework should be the bullying of students with disabilities (Young, Na’eman, & Gesler, 2011).

Comprehensive and Multi-Tiered Behavioral Framework in School-Wide Policies

Using this comprehensive and multi-tiered behavioral framework allows schools to make decisions on which program should be implemented based on the needs to the specific school. By allowing schools to organize evidence-based practices, especially those that complement the district wide program, support the use of evidence-based practice over time, and monitor its efficiency and effectiveness. It is important, due to the intensity of past situations within the country, that each school understand the needs of each of their disabled students and how their needs will affect the school-wide bullying intervention program. Each school needs to create and sustain a positive, safe, and nurturing school environment for each child, and with severely disabled students, this can be extremely difficult.

School-wide policies and programs need to also include group and individual instruction and intervention to problematic behaviors. This includes the recognition of students or groups of students showing at-risk behavior and providing intervention and instruction. Following the district plan this would include separating specific groups of individuals and dispersing them amongst socially and academically proficient groups of children. For some schools, this may not be the only approach for some children and other interventions need to take place. Many of the successful, evidence-based behavioral prevention and intervention school-wide frameworks share many of the same intervention characteristics just with different, very specific intervention types (Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, & Isava, 2008; Farrington & Ttofi, 2009).

Attributes of Successful School-Wide Bully Intervention Programs

Develop and implement clear policies to address bullying

Schools that develop clear policies that align with Section 504 enforced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights have an outline that addresses the legal ramifications of bullying behaviors. Successful school-wide programs have policies that express the stringent consequences of harassment of any child but specifically those with a disability. School who show success have freely disseminate their behavioral expectations and anti-violence/harassment policies and procedures to all staff, students, parents, and community partners to establish safe and positive environments. Schools need to be able to answer any questions about these polices and have continual training for those staff required to attend and those community members that want to be educated. The staff not only needs to understand the policies but also must be able to act when an individual does not follow these policies. Part of what helps staff follow the policies set in place is requiring a written form of the incident and the response taken.

Teach Appropriate Behaviors and How to Respond

With secondary students thinking more abstractly than there prior years in primary education, they can begin to share sympathy and understand others situations through empathy. This can be used in instruction that clearly explains to students what behaviors are expected, what bullying or violent behavior looks like, and how to appropriate respond when such behavior is observed. Part of the teaching process in bullying intervention and prevention is consistency in response to both acceptable and unacceptable behavior. For the school-wide program to be successful this consistency is not just with the same staff member or teacher but rather from class to class, adult to adult, academic environment to school-sponsored extra-curricular environment. Creating these shared predictable expectations and responses naturally teaches the student what behaviors are and are not acceptable.

Provide Active Adult Supervision

Adults, both in the academic environment and in the community, play an integral role in intervention and prevention of bullying behaviors. Part of this is the engagement of the supervising adult in groups of students’ immediate activities for brief amounts of time. This is easily done by complimenting a child doing an activity properly and correcting a child when they are not. High supervising adult activity done in common areas, such as hallways, playgrounds, and extra-curricular events, will create less opportunities for bullying behaviors to manifest. Also, to be more efficient, less supervising adults who continually travel throughout the area actively engaging, provides effective prevention to problematic behavior.

Monitor and Track Bullying Behaviors

One of the most shared commonalities between bullying prevention and intervention programs is the tracking and monitoring of the occurring bullying behavior. In a perfect world, violence and harassment characterized as bullying would not exist but no matter how hard we try, there will always one student bullying another at some point in time in some school, physical, or virtual community somewhere. However, when a specific type of bullying is recognized, the tracking and monitoring of that specific type allows school professional to better understand the school