August 21-23, 2023
Collaborative & Proactive Solutions, Moving From Power and Control to Collaboration and Problem-Solving – 3 days
BC’s Redesigned Curriculum and Graduation Program are designed so that students graduate from secondary school as educated citizens, with the knowledge, competencies, and skills they will need to transition successfully into higher education, training, and the workforce. To date, students with disabilities, particularly students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, have had limited opportunities to transition to higher education, training, and the work force.
This three-day strand focuses on current, evidence based high school transition practices for students with disabilities. An emphasis is placed on the predictors for an inclusive life after high school–self-determination, and paid employment in the high school years. Participants will be shown detailed exemplars of research in practice. Specifically, participants will be shown the process of self-determination instruction, and students developing and acting upon their Self-Directed Life Plans with a focus on paid employment and customized employment practices in the high school years.
This is the innovative, evidence-based, trauma-informed model Dr. Ross Greene describes in his influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Using Beings. The CPS model has transformed thinking and practices in countless families, schools, inpatient psychiatry units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities throughout the world, and has been associated with dramatic reductions in adult-child conflict, concerning behaviors, disciplinary referrals, detentions, suspensions, restraints, and seclusions. The model represents a significant departure from discipline-as-usual: it focuses on solving problems rather than on modifying behavior, emphasizes collaborative rather than unilateral solutions, encourages proactive rather than reactive intervention, de-emphasizes diagnostic categories, and provides practical, research-based tools for assessment and intervention. Participants in this workshop will leave with an understanding of the underpinnings of the model, its refinements over the past 8-10 years, and practical assessment and intervention tools that can be brought back to and used in these diverse settings.
Objectives
At the conclusion of the seminar, participants will be able to:
- Describe the five paradigm shifts of the CPS model, and how the model focuses on problems (and solving them) rather than on the behaviors that are being caused by those problems (and modifying them); the advantages of collaborative (rather than unilateral) problem solving; and the importance and feasibility of proactive (rather than reactive) intervention.
- Identify the lagging skills that are involved in solving problems, handling frustration, being flexible and adaptable, and regulating emotions, and the unsolved problems that are causing concerning behaviors
- Describe the three basic mechanisms by which adults handle unsolved problems and unmet expectations in kids (Plans A, B, and C) and what is accomplished by each
- Describe the three steps of Plan B
- Describe how to effectively implement Plan B and the various roadblocks that can occur in implementation (and how to overcome them)