Dr. Ross Greene

Dr. Greene responded to lots of questions on this program. Can a school nurse help a behaviorally challenging student who has alienated all of the other adults in the building (and is well down the path toward alienation as well)? Can adults solve problems collaboratively with students with significant delays in communication skills? Can a student with behavioral challenges do well in a school emphasizing obedience to rules and regulations...or is it time to consider a different school?

What should the school's response be when students bring weapons to school? Does Plan A get the job done? How about Plan B? The Educators Panel weighs in.

Lots of good questions were discussed on this program, including how to determine whether a child would benefit from extra assistance from, for example, an occupational therapist or speech/language therapist...and how to use Plan B to address problems affecting the entire class. 

It was back to the email today on Collaborative Problem Solving at School, and Dr. Greene responded to some very interesting questions, including the most effective approach to fighting at school (such as fighting).

What better way to start the new broadcast season than with our Educators Panel...and they're assessing where their schools stand with implementation of the CPS model and what their goals are for moving the ball forward this year.

Dr. Greene tried to catch up on email during this last program of the 2011-2012 school year, and covered various topics such as how to incorporate lagging skills and unsolved problems into a Functional Behavior Assessment, and whether the "Kids do well if they can" mantra applies to not-so-challenging students too. 

In this, our final Anytown High School program for this school year, one of our core group members asked about whether she drilled far enough on the unsolved problem (skipping class) of one of her students. Both Dr. Greene and the other core group members were happy to pitch in on that. (By the way, Dr. Greene unknowingly had himself muted at the beginning of the program, so you'll need to wait a minute after the introduction before the program begins.)

Central School in South Berwick, Maine, has been implementing Collaborative Problem Solving as part of a study funded by the Maine Juvenile Justice Advisory Group. School Counselor Nina D'Aran, one of our Educators Panel members, talks about the hurdles they faced (and overcame), the kids they've helped, and the work left to be done.

Which takes more time? Applying "uninformed" solutions to students' behavior problems, based on little or no information about the factors truly underlying the behavior...or spen ding the time to gather that information so as to work toward "informed" solutions?

The magic isn't in what schools do after a student is sent to the office...that's reactive intervention.  The magic is in what schools do before a student is sent to the office in the first place...that's proactive, and it works a lot better.

Effective implementation of Collaborative Problem Solving in a school usually starts with a core group of staff who are mastering the model first...school-wide implementation comes later. Which kids should you start with? Your frequent flyers, of course.

Another great discussion, highlighted by the fact that a student called into the program and received an unexpected orientation to Collaborative Problem Solving.

By request, Dr. Greene devoted this program to providing an overview of the Empathy step of Plan B. A good review for the already-familiar...a good introduction for those new to the CPS model. 

Amazing what adults learn about kids in the Empathy step...especially when the adults leave their preconceived notions at the door.

It was a tough topic for the Educators Panel, but a discussion worth having...and listening to.

Dr. Greene's guest today on CPS at School was Julie Benay, prinicpal at Mallets Bay School in Colchester, Vermont.  A great discussion about...well, the title pretty much tells the tale...

On today's program, one of the educators at Anytown told us about a Plan B she'd attempted with a student in which the Empathy step became contentious. It turns out she had entered the Empathy step with a theory about the unsolved problem she was discussing...and that theory made it hard for her to achieve the primary goal of the Empathy step:  information gathering (rather than theory verification).

CPS is coming along rather nicely in the schools of the members of our Educators Panel...of course, there's still more work to be done.

A very interesting discussion today about "clumping" versus "splitting" unsolved problems. Listen in to see what that means!

Dr. Greene promised to do an entire program on how to use the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP), and here it is!