| Responsible Behaviour Support |
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Our school is preparing to become a Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) school. The transition will take quite sometime and involves the whole of our school's community. The philosophy of SWPBS is quite significant. (It should be noted that the following explanation of SWPBS is the direction we are heading at not necessarily current school practice). What is Positive Behaviour Support?Positive behaviour support (PBS) is a values-based approach to improving the quality of life of individuals. PBS is grounded in applied behaviour analysis, which seeks to answer socially important questions through the study of behaviour in applied or ‘real’ settings, such as the school, the home, community and the workplace. In applied behaviour analysis, behaviour is not just a physiological response; it is a physiological response that has social meaning. For this reason, students who from an early age have persistent problem behaviour that violates social norms, often experience an impaired quality of life beyond school and into adulthood. Fundamental to PBS is the observation that all behaviour serves a purpose or a “function” for the student. By enabling the student to get what they want or escape or avoid what they don’t want, behaviour – whether acceptable or unacceptable – is “learned” – repeated often over time - by the student as a way of getting their needs met. It is therefore difficult to change a learned behaviour, unless it can be replaced with a socially acceptable or “positive” replacement behaviour that enables the student to get their needs met more efficiently and effectively than the problem behaviour. The replacement behaviour is taught directly to the student, using standard instructional techniques, and the environment is altered in ways that facilitates the use and practicing of, the replacement desired behaviour. One of the fundamental goals of PBS, therefore, is to build environments in which positive behaviour is more effective than problem behaviour in enabling the student to get their needs met. This differs from traditional behaviour management, in which the major focus is on the student’s problem behaviour and on stopping that behaviour through punishment. Another critical feature of PBS is the use of a collaborative, assessment based approach to problem solving behavioural difficulties. In traditional approaches to behaviour support, behaviour “management” is often the prerogative of a single or small group of “experts,” charged with removing the student from the setting in which the behaviour occurs, “fixing” the problem and then returning the student to the setting, with the expectation that nothing else in the environment will need to be changed because the student has changed, or at least says they have changed. In PBS, the recognition that the teaching and learning environment plays a pivotal role in the occurrence or non-occurrence of the problem behaviour indicates the need for the participation of a broader range of personnel in the assessment and support process. Everyone, not just the individual, may have to change some of the things they have always done. A third critical feature of PBS is that individuals need to be acknowledged for appropriate behaviour, especially when it has been taught to them as a replacement for problem behaviour. For some individuals, simply being able to legitimately escape what they don’t want or access what they do want is reward enough, but many others may need some additional reward in the early stages of support to encourage them to be persistent. This reward does not necessarily need to be tangible – such as a token – it can often be just as “reinforcing” to the person in the form of positive social acknowledgement. PBS takes an assessment-based approach to rewards as well, ensuring that such rewards actually strengthen the positive behaviour, can be “faded” – reduced- during a transition to student self-management, and do not become bribery. In summary:
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