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Session Evaluations

If you have recently attended a session on PBIS, please visit the Evaluations page to find the link to your session evaluation. Your feedback is critical to improving PBIS for students!

Executive Summary of Maine PBIS Grant

The Maine Department of Education recently awarded the Maine Partnership of Partnerships (POP) a professional development project in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) that builds upon long standing collaborative efforts of the Maine Support Network and POP. This exciting project will create and support vibrant teaching and learning environments by providing professional development and direct services to SAUs in four regions of the state (Aroostook, Washington, and northern and southern Penobscot counties). It is designed to enhance the capacity of schools and programs to adopt and sustain the use of PBIS for all children and children with disabilities (birth-20) in their natural environments and educational programs. The project’s activities will promote educational competency for educators, and community and service providers, and improve, enhance, and support student learning, engagement, and school completion by improving the delivery of services to young children and students with challenging behavior. By integrating best practice, innovative distance technology, and face-to-face local and regional activities based on a comprehensive needs assessment, this project assures that learning opportunities will be readily available, accessible, and valuable to educators, including early childhood providers, across the regions that comprise this collaborative effort. It is anticipated that the Downeast and Midcoast partnerships will join in year 2.

Project Goal and Objectives

Project Goal: Maine POP will provide professional development through four regional collaboratives designed to build effective systems approaches to enhance the capacity of schools and programs to adopt and sustain the use of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) for all children and children with disabilities, in their natural environment or educational programs.

• Deliver a wide range of professional development and technical assistance in PBIS, including Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving model, based on B-20 needs assessment of parents, providers, educators, and other pertinent stakeholders at the local and regional levels.
• Each POP member will prepare and implement an evidence-based, comprehensive systems-change initiative designed to create a seamless web of PBIS and mental health services that “wrap around” children with disabilities, and their families, based upon local and regional needs assessments to be conducted by September 2009.
• Educators will work together and differentiate between behavioral and academic practices in order to reinforce holistic child well-being throughout the school day.
• Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) teams will be supported, upon request, to develop an Individualized Behavior Intervention Plan that will result in fewer negative behavioral interventions, so that children with disabilities will participate in more instructional time.
• Training will be provided for educators and providers in non-violent interventions, and the proper use of restraints and time-out rooms.
• Professional development and technical assistance will be provided to enhance understanding of mental health diagnoses and their impact on children’s behavior.

Timelines

The project’s activities got under way this August with local needs assessments and the development of district and regional technical assistance plans. Regional leadership teams have begun participating in professional development activities led by Dr. Jim Artesani of the UMaine College of Education and Human Development. Additional professional development and technical assistance is being coordinated by the Maine Support Network, based upon the findings of the needs assessments.

For more information, please contact:

Project Coordinator: Corda Ladd Kinzie, MSN, corda@roadrunner.com or 446-2160.
In Aroostook County: Dave Ouellette, CACE, david.w.ouellette@umpi.edu or 768-9590.
In Washington County: Betty Jordan, WCC, wcc@maine.edu or 255-1219.
In northern Penobscot County: Ann Davis, NWP, adavis@pwless.net or 764-3511.
In southern Penobscot County: Owen Maurais, PREP, owen.maurais@umit.maine.edu or 581-3651.