Universal protocols and crisis intervention in schools - Applied 2023

Abstract There is an increasing and unfortunate trend for children to experience repeated physical restraint, mechanical restraint, and extended seclusion procedures (hereafter labeled “reactive procedures”) in their school environment in reaction to the presence of dangerous behavior. Recent data suggest that in a single school year, 101,990 students in U.S. public schools were subjected to reactive procedures (Civil Rights Data Collection, 2018). Of those students, 70,833 specifically experienced physical restraint, 80% of whom (56,905) were students with disabilities. Such reactive procedures are commonly offered in response to real and significant dangerous behaviors in hopes of keeping children, other students, and staff safe. Unfortunately, despite pervasive reliance on reactive approaches, they do not always prevent injury and never result in long-term, socially meaningful improvements in dangerous behavior. Furthermore, they are often extremely challenging for children, families, and educators, with their repeated use associated with suboptimal educational outcomes, to say nothing of their lack of social acceptability. In this two-part presentation, we describe in-school implementation and associated outcomes of Universal Protocols to rapidly address high-risk dangerous behavior in school settings. We also present our initial model and emerging data for embedding multiple evaluations of social validity (of our goals, procedures, and outcomes) throughout our behavioral consultation processes in schools. We aim to convey how our procedures and measurement systems were developed iteratively through years of consultation across the state of Tennessee and to communicate their importance to safe and dignifying behavioral intervention to address crisis situations in schools.