- Active Listening
Concentrating on what another person is sharing in way that makes it clear to that person that you are interested in what they are telling you. Active listening can include both verbal and nonverbal signals that show a person you are fully attending to what is being said.
- Antecedent
A stimulus is a verbal cue, physical prompt, person or event that precedes a behavior.
- Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
Applied behavior Analysis or ABA is used to teach skills such as communication, self-care, communication and social skills, and academics. The practice relies on the principles of learning theory to prevent challenging behavior and improve quality of life. Different forms or models of ABA have evolved over time to support children and adults. A few examples include Discrete Trial Training, Pivotal Response Treatment, and the Early Start Denver Model.
- Assertive Community Treatment
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) improves outcomes for people with severe mental illness and may be more likely to be at-risk of hospitalization and other negative life outcomes including possible involvement in the criminal justice system. The practice involves forming a multidisciplinary team including community outreach and action planning.
- Challenging Behaviors
Behaviors that are of concern either to one's self or by the people who are living and working with a person. Everyone engages in behaviors that are problematic at some point in life. A behavior becomes challenging if it interferes with quality of life, health and wellness, or safety.
- Charting the LifeCourse
A person-centered planning process that can be used to support people with disabilities or mental health issues with their families. LifeCourse tools are used to help children and adults and their families organize ideas, think about their values, and identify goals for improving quality of life. Parents, case managers, mental health professionals, teachers, family members and friends, and anyone interested work together in exploring ways to help a person navigate their life and advocate for changes in supports as needed.
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
This type of therapy addresses the relationship between one's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The goal is to target current problems a person is having and to assist this person in changing their behaviors and/or thoughts that are causing challenges for them in everyday life.
- Cognitive Processing Therapy
A type of cognitive behavior therapy that helps people learn how to change beliefs related to past trauma.
- Cultural Values
The core beliefs and ideals that a person has that remain stable and consistent over time. Understanding our own cultural values can explain how and why we are responding to another person in either a positive or negative manner. Being aware of similarities and differences in cultural values in ourselves and others helps us to become more culturally responsive.
- Culturally Responsive
The ability of people or groups of people to act with humility as they learn about and become more aware of their own and others’ cultural values in ways that are respectful and contribute to a diverse community. Acting with humility conveys the message that we cannot know everything about another person and their culture and, therefore, we are in a lifelong process of reflection about our own and other cultures. Being culturally responsive means that we help everyone become more aware of their own bias and the larger systemic racism existing in organizations.
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy
This practice refers to a type of cognitive behavioral treatment originally used to support people with borderline personality disorder. Over time, this practice has been expanded to support people with a range of issues that are related to self-regulating behavior. People who learn to self-regulate can recognize and cope better with strong emotions. Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT has been used to address a number of mental health issues including post-traumatic stress, binge eating, depression and substance misuse. The main goal of dialectical behavior therapy is to learn four strategies: 1) develop skills to regulate emotions, 2) practice mindfulness skills that help people to live in the moment, 3) increase the ability to tolerate distress, and 4) expand relationship-building skills. Therapy can involve working in groups to learn new behavioral skills, meeting for individual therapy, and engaging in coaching sessions.
- Fidelity of Implementation
A process for showing evidence that you are implementing a practice in the way a practice is intended. Tools used to assess fidelity can be used at an organizational level with teams, to evaluate individual plans, and for specific interventions that are put in place to support a person.
- Individual Education Plan
A document developed to support a child with a disability in an educational context who is receiving specialized services. An IEP is a special education plan that includes instruction, supports, and the services a student needs to be successful in school.
- LifeCourse (Charting the LifeCourse)
A person-centered planning process that can be used to support people with disabilities or mental health issues with their families. LifeCourse tools are used to help children and adults and their families organize ideas, think about their values, and identify goals for improving quality of life. Parents, case managers, mental health professionals, teachers, family members and friends, and anyone interested work together in exploring ways to help a person navigate their life and advocate for changes in supports as needed.
- Mindfulness
A therapeutic strategy that involves focusing one's awareness on the present moment. Mindfulness helps people to accept thoughts and feelings and observe what they are thinking and feeling. When a person achieves this mental state and practices it over time, this practice can help them manage strong emotions, and decrease anxiety, stress, and depression.
- Motivational Interviewing
Motivation interviewing is an evidence based practice that provides a collaborative and goal-oriented approach for communicating with someone with a focus on the language of change. This approach helps a person strengthen a personal motivation for working on a specific goal. The focus is on helping people explore their own reasons for change while creating a setting that creates a sense of acceptance and compassion.
- Person-Centered Plan
A person-centered plan is a process that is used to create a plan for a positive and meaningful life for someone by building on their interests and strengths. There are different methods that can be used to help a person create their dreams for a better future. The person who asks for a person-centered plan chooses the people who will attend the meeting, the facilitator, and the location where the event is held. The goal of a person-centered plan is to create a set of actions that will help a person live their best life. There a many planning models that can be used to guide a meeting. However, the best person-centered planning process uses elements from different approaches to meet the needs of each person.
- Person-Centered Practices
Three elements of person-centered practices:
- Person-centered strategies are tools and practices that everyone can use to help people learn about what brings joy to someone and makes life worth living. These tools and practices are also used to find out what is important to a person as well as understanding their needs for health, safety, and well-being.
- Person-centered planning is a process that is used to create a plan for a positive and meaningful life for someone by building on their interests and strengths. There are different methods that can be used to help a person create their dreams for a better future.
- Person-centered organizational changes address how services and supports are planned and delivered. Changes that are made include fixing policies, adding ongoing opportunities for learning, and building community supports. Services for people across the lifespan are changed in ways that improve quality of life outcomes.
- Positive Behavior Support
A framework used to improve the quality of a person’s life and prevent or decrease challenging social interactions. The tools and strategies used in positive behavior support encourage social and communication skills and involve changing social settings to prevent challenging behaviors. Positive behavior support is based on research from areas including biomedical and behavioral science. Research also guides how positive behavior support is implemented in education and human service settings using a tiered model with interventions that gradually increase based on each person's unique needs. The universal level, or tier one, includes interventions for improving the quality of life and social interactions for everyone within a provider setting. The second tier involves monitoring HCBS data to identify problems that a person might have as early as possible and to intervene when challenges are still minor. The third tier is used to create individualized plans for each person who needs more intense supports.
- Setting Events
Physiological, social or environmental conditions, past or present, that can influence the likelihood of challenging behavior. Setting events temporarily change the power and intensity of reinforcers in a person's environment.
- Systems of Care
A system of care is a coordinated network of community-based services and supports designed to meet the challenges of children and youth with serious mental health needs and their families. These partnerships of families, youth, public organizations and private service providers address challenging behavior by addressing the mental health services and support needs and building on the strengths of a child, young person, or adult. These systems are also developed around the principles of being child-centered, family-driven, strength-based, and culturally competent.
- Three Tiered Model of Positive Behavior Support
A framework for implementing universal strategies for all people in a home, work, or other setting and by providing a continuum of interventions that increase in intensity based on the unique needs of each person. This framework is applied to positive behavior support and other practices that improve quality of life.
- Tier 1 Universal
Strategies for practicing and learning social and emotional skills that everyone can benefit from learning including people receiving support, staff, supervisors, human resource professionals, leaders, family and community members. Tier 1 also includes recognizing and celebrating positive social interactions, responding in a consistent manner to challenges, and using data to assess progress over time.
- Tier 2
Monitoring for changes in quality of life or challenges that might be occurring in social interactions and intervening as early as possible to prevent an escalation of interfering behavior. Examples of Tier 2 includes simple function-based strategies and group interventions that provide more opportunities to practice skills and receive positive feedback.
- Tier 3
A smaller number of people benefit from structured, individualized, and intensive interventions. When a Tier 3 plan is needed, a team of people form around someone to support this child or adult who is seeking support. A person-centered plan helps create a vision for what the child or adults ideal life and dreams are and an action plan is created with steps for improving quality of life. Practices that will help improve quality of life and other outcomes are identified including examples such as positive behavior support, cognitive behavior therapy, trauma informed care, and motivational interviewing.
- Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Traumatic life experiences such as child or domestic abuse, natural disasters, or other negative life events can have a lasting impact on a person’s health and emotional wellbeing. Trauma-Informed Cognitive Behavior Therapy is an evidence-based practice that addresses this issue. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a positive support that teaches children and adults skills to recognize negative or unhealthy thoughts associated with past experiences and to engage in stress management and coping strategies when these thoughts occur. This approach can also include teaching new skills for parents and caregivers of children involved in therapy. A family therapy approach is used to help recognize family dynamics, teach new parenting skills, support stress management for both child and family members, and work on improving communication skills.
- Trauma-Informed Practices
Refers to evidence-based practices that assume that children and adults have a history of trauma and that this trauma may have an impact on their behavior and quality of life. Understanding the impact of trauma and creating strategies for supporting people responding to memories of past trauma in their lives can be achieved in different ways. Examples include different types of trauma-informed practices include trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive restructuring, and cognitive processing therapy.
- Wraparound Planning
A process created to support children, young people, and adults with mental health needs and challenging behavior and coordinating the different service systems involved. Each of these services require parents/caregivers to complete forms, attend meetings, and respond to requests related to services. Juvenile justice, children and family services, special education, mental health, and developmental disabilities are all examples of these different services. The wraparound plan is mean to help youth and their parents by improving service coordination. Wraparound planning is a team-based approach that is child and family driven. Team members include natural supports (friends, family members, and people who know the child or young person well). Individuals from formal supports might include a parole officer, counselor, psychiatrist, or special education teacher. The goal of wraparound is to assess the child and family strengths in order to build a plan of support that will improve quality of life.