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Staff Concerns in Schools Planning for and Implementing School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

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Abstract

Understanding staff concerns about a systemic change effort allows leadership teams to better anticipate and address staff needs for professional development and support. In this study, staff concerns in nine schools planning for or implementing School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) were explored using the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM). The concerns of staff were coded and aggregated to generate group concern profiles. Results revealed that planning and implementing staff most frequently reported task-related concerns associated with managing, organizing, and implementing SWPBIS. More staff in planning schools were unaware of SWPBIS, while more staff in implementing schools were concerned with the impact of SWPBIS on students. Across all schools, the majority of staff reported their support for SWPBIS implementation, but they were concerned about the support and implementation of their colleagues. Analysis of concerns in this manner can help teams to understand the nature of staff concerns in their school and better target areas of professional development at the universal, targeted, and individual level of SWPBIS. Additional implications for practice are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School Psychology, Seattle University, P. O. Box 222000, Seattle, WA, 98122, USA

    Ashli D. Tyre

  2. University of Washington-Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, USA

    Laura L. Feuerborn

  3. Shoreline Public Schools, Shoreline, WA, USA

    Leslie Woods

Authors
  1. Ashli D. Tyre
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  2. Laura L. Feuerborn
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  3. Leslie Woods
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Correspondence to Ashli D. Tyre.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was attained in accordance with institutional research committee specifications. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Tyre, A.D., Feuerborn, L.L. & Woods, L. Staff Concerns in Schools Planning for and Implementing School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. Contemp School Psychol 22, 77–89 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-017-0130-5

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