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Supporting Scale-up of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: A National Technical Assistance Model

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Handbook of School Mental Health

Part of the book series: Issues in Clinical Child Psychology ((ICCP))

Abstract

An on-going challenge for any educational initiative is sustained implementation with fidelity. For decades, the U.S. Department of Education has funded Technical Assistance and Dissemination (TA/D) Centers to assist state education agencies (SEA) and local education agencies (LEA) with implementation. To date, TA/D Centers have had limited or unknown impact on implementation of evidence-based practices. This chapter (a) provides a historical overview of the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Program’s Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), a TA/D Center that has been funded through five 5-year competitive grant cycles and (b) describes the initial and on-going problem-solving framework developed to assist SEAs and LEAs with implementation of PBIS that shaped all Center activities, including recent mission expansions, across the life of the Center. Specifically, the four key challenges that guided the Center’s work are discussed that include (1) developing a widely generalizable set of materials and processes for dissemination; (2) producing a set of practices and processes that allow for various outcome priorities and staff configurations; (3) taking Center TA/D efforts to scale; and (4) to sustain implementation with fidelity. Further consideration for the rationale for creating a set of implementation “blueprints” versus a standard curriculum and progress to date in addressing the noted challenges and expanded implementation efforts are provided.

Author note: The development of this article was supported by the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education (#H326S180001). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Office or U.S. Department of Education.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See pbis.org for additional information on key features of SWPBIS.

  2. 2.

    see pbis.org for current versions of the Implementation, Evaluation, and Professional Development Blueprints.

  3. 3.

    Available at pbis.org

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Timothy J. Lewis

  2. University of Connecticut, Stamford, CT, USA

    Brandi Simonsen

  3. University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Kent McIntosh

  4. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Heather Peshak George

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  1. Timothy J. Lewis
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  2. Brandi Simonsen
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  3. Kent McIntosh
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  4. Heather Peshak George
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Correspondence to Timothy J. Lewis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

    Steven W. Evans

  2. Department of Psychology, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

    Julie Sarno Owens

  3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Catherine P. Bradshaw

  4. Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Mark D. Weist

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Lewis, T.J., Simonsen, B., McIntosh, K., George, H.P. (2023). Supporting Scale-up of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: A National Technical Assistance Model. In: Evans, S.W., Owens, J.S., Bradshaw, C.P., Weist, M.D. (eds) Handbook of School Mental Health. Issues in Clinical Child Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20006-9_35

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