A State-Wide Partnership to Promote Safe and Supportive Schools: The PBIS Maryland Initiative

Abstract

Schools continue to be an important context for preventive interventions targeting a range of behavioral and mental health problems. Yet competing demands on teachers and shifting priorities in response to federal legislation have posed some unique challenges to prevention researchers working in school settings. This paper summarizes an approach to prevention partnerships developed over a decade and centered on the three-tiered Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model. A state-wide initiative was formed and led through a partnership between the Maryland State Department of Education, Sheppard Pratt Health System, and Johns Hopkins University, which focused on implementing evidence-based practices and conducting prevention research in Maryland public schools. Drawing on a community-based participatory research framework for developing research partnerships, we highlight the importance of forming and sustaining authentic relationships to support school-based prevention research and implementation of evidence-based programs. We also discuss how these relationships have been used to disseminate PBIS and rigorously test its effectiveness. We describe some lessons learned from the partnership and identify potential areas for future research on the prevention partnership model. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for both researchers and community partners engaged in translational research in school settings.

Odd Couple? Reenvisioning the Relation Between Science and Practice in the Dissemination-Implementation Era

“…The Community-Based Participatory Research approach (CPR; Israel, Eng, Schulz, & Parker, 2005) assumes that, just as the professionals may have EBP expertise, community partners have expertise in the target community's current status, goals, resources, and needs, and that each area of expertise is critical for DI (Becker, Stice, Shaw, & Woda, 2009). Applying this perspective, (a) Becker et al (2009) used CPR to adapt and implement a prevention program for eating disorders within a large sorority, (b) Brookman-Frazee, Stahmer, Lewis, Feder, and Reed (2012) used CPR to identify, implement, and sustain an EBP for infants and toddlers at risk for Austism Spectrum Disorders in a community clinic, and (c) Bradshaw et al (2012) used a CPR partnership between the Maryland Department of Education, Sheppard Pratt Health System, and Johns Hopkins University, to build a strategy for implementing a program preventing disruptive behavior, in 800 public schools. As DIP and DIS grow in scope and complexity, the need for skills in CPR Science and Practice of Dissemination and Implementation 33 may grow ever more pressing.…”

Building a Science of Partnership-Focused Research: Forging and Sustaining Partnerships to Support Child Mental Health Prevention and Services Research

“…The first paper is by Bradshaw et al (2012), and it summarizes a program of school-based prevention research which blends the public health perspective and an organizationally-focused educational framework to prevent behavioral and mental health problems in children and adolescents. They provide several examples of their collaborative research efforts that have leveraged federal grants to support large-scale randomized controlled trials; this work has also informed the scale-up of the prevention model in over half of the public schools in Maryland.…”

Behavioral and Emotional Development of African American Boys Growing Up in Risky Environments

“…Research on instructional practices should focus on ways to help teachers move beyond punitive approaches to classroom discipline to exploring boys’ socioemotional needs and identifying their strengths. Training teachers in a program called Positive Behavioral Supports and Interventions has reduced suspensions and office referrals, and has been used by school districts interested in addressing disparate disciplinary practices (Bradshaw et al, ). In addition, restorative justice practices provide strategic approaches to behavior management that are humane, fair, and focused on children.…”