Finding the BEST way to bridge behavioural gaps
Associate superintendent of human services Tracy Hensel and school district psychologist Claire Peterson made a presentation to the SD76 board of trustees Tuesday on their efforts to help schools, teachers, kids and parents deal with disruptive behaviours in classrooms where higher-level intervention is required.
Hensel reported her BEST (Behavioural Emotional Support Team) staff had been active in schools within the district since September.
“We have seen significant buy-in from the schools,” said Hensel. “Part of what we were trying to address with our Grades 2-6 population was around the idea of how do we support our students’ emotional and behavioural needs at the site level, and how we walk alongside the school team to help build capacity in all the people who are working with the child.”
BEST only gets involved in situations where the schools are having trouble dealing with individual students in house. These interventions help schools, teachers and the students’ families work together to come up with solutions to serious behavioural issues.
“One of the principles that underlines our work,” said Peterson, “is about shifting perspective for teachers, education assistants, parents and caregivers to reframe behaviour to understand any behaviour is a part of communication. That it is purposeful.”
Peterson said such a reframing allows everyone involved with the child’s well-being to see beyond the idea of the individual just being a bad kid.
“If I have the ability to make a different choice, and don’t do it, that’s misbehaviour,” explained Peterson. “If you don’t have the capacity to do something differently, that can be stress behaviour. We respond to stress behaviour differently than we respond to misbehaviour.”
Part of finding a solution to the child’s behaviour is to help them and their support staff build up capacity to self-regulate their emotional reactions.
“Self-regulation is something we talk about to help students gain control over their own behaviour,” stated Peterson. “We are recognizing through this approach is first we need a sense of co-regulation. Many students are unable to self-regulate because they have not learned that skill yet. When we are able to model regulation for them within ourselves, then we are able to teach them that skill.”
The BEST members will remain at a school working with staff there for a week or two at a time to get a strategy in place to deal with the troubling behaviour, and will continue home visits with the child and his or her family afterward to ensure those strategies are taking hold and having a good effect. Peterson used the metaphor of an iceberg to explain what her team was trying to do.
“It’s about figuring out what’s beneath that iceberg and understanding how we have the ability to change the direction for a child,” she said.