Special educators who provide self-contained programming for students with extensive behavioral support needs are charged with providing individualized behavioral and instructional practices to students who are arguably the most at risk for poor outcomes. This charge, in combination with established challenges in working conditions, often leads to higher rates of attrition, even when compared to other special educators. The literature calls for more systematic processes in special education to reduce factors related to teacher burnout, with one of these processes being a systematic team-based approach to behavior assessment and intervention planning. In this presentation, we will present a tool for forming a multidisciplinary team and systematically completing the FBA/BIP process as a means to reduce educator stress, mitigate factors that lead to teacher burnout, and ultimately increase positive student behaviors. This tool is designed to reduce barriers identified in the literature that traditionally make team-based behavior assessments and interventions less effective, including team conceptualization, teacher burnout, implementation fidelity, and flexibility amongst roles.
Meghan Edwards-Bowyer is a contributing author and non-presenter for this session.