Camp PAWS: A Positive Alternative to Suspensions in Early Elementary

Our schools report increasingly extreme and problematic behavior in our earliest grades. As early school expectations increase and teacher pressure mounts we are often at a loss when students enter school without basic social, emotional, and behavioral school readiness skills. Schools had the sole option of within-classroom interventions that often left the teacher and student frustrated and frequently resulted in suspensions. Further, some children prefer to be sent home, causing them to increase and escalate their problematic behavior on a regular basis. Appropriate school behavior is impossible to teach if the student is not in school! These extreme behavior problems reflect a need for not only teacher education in positive behavior support, but also the need for a simultaneous “positive behavior boot camp” for some young children with extreme behaviors. This session will share one county’s positive solution, from student referral and consideration, including the role of the FBA and simultaneous teacher support and skill development, to intervention implementation, data-based decision making, and transition plans. Camp PAWS, an intensive positive behavior intervention for skill building in kindergarten students, was the 2015 recipient of the Innovative Practice Award from the Georgia Association of School Psychologists. The program utilizes research-based strategies to help students develop the skills that are needed for a positive and productive educational experience. The foundation of the program is based in the belief that these extreme behaviors are commonly due to a lack of school readiness skills, which may present as aggressive behavior, inappropriate attention-seeking behavior, rejection by peers, and/or internalizing difficulties such as excessive sadness, fears, or worry. The intervention includes scaffolded classroom and school experiences in which behavioral expectations and social skills are explicitly taught, consistently reinforced, and practiced in partner classrooms. These positive strategies are also taught to parents and can be used at home