- Active Listening
Concentrating on what another person is sharing in way that makes it clear that you are interested in what a person is sharing. Active listening can include both verbal and nonverbal signals that show a person you are fully attending to what is being said.
- 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.
- Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Refers to tools and strategies used to help a person communicate. Augmentative strategies are added to a person's speech to assist with communication. Alternative methods are used instead of speech. AAC can have low costs and low technology-based strategies (gestures, writing, pointing to pictures) or can involve a higher level of technology (computers, ipads, communication devices).
- Behavior Specific Praise
A positive statement that involves acknowledging a behavior in an observable and specific manner using a sincere and enthusiastic tone that is tailored to the preferences of that person. For example, "John thank you for holding the door open for me, that makes me feel so valued by you!" It is important to use this concept while taking into consideration cultural differences and personal preferences.
- Community-Based Positive Supports
Refers to strategies used to improve quality of life and decrease the likelihood of challenging behaviors. Each person is different and may benefit from different types of practices that have been shown to be effective in research studies.
- Historical Trauma
Refers to a cumulative experience of psychological injury that crosses generations and has changed how someone responds to everyday life experiences. Historical trauma can disrupt traditional the expression of values and routines, fracture community cohesiveness, and result in psychological effects that have a negative impact on quality of life. Substance abuse and post traumatic stress disorder are just two examples of the impact of historical trauma.
- Important For
The term “Important For” refers to those things that are needed to help keep people safe and that ensure mental and physical wellness. Examples of what is “Important For” a person can include: ensuring basic safety at home and in the community, maintaining daily hygiene that prevents serious pain or illness, taking medications that keep a person alive and healthy, using mental health practices that prevent severe mental illness such as depression or substance abuse, and making sure a person is considered a valued part of the community.
- Important To
The term “Important To” refers to those things that make us happy, content, gives us purpose and meaning to our day, and makes life enjoyable. Examples of what is “Important To” us include: favorite items or belongings, places we choose to visit, events and activities we enjoy, a feeling of having social status in our community, the ability to predict and control our day, choosing a preferred rhythm and pace in life, honoring our routines and rituals, and finding and maintaining key relationships.
- LifeCourse (Charting the LifeCourse)
A person-centered planning process is a framework with tools that can be used to help people organize ideas, values, and goals in order to problem solve and improve quality of life over time. Parents, case managers, mental health professionals, teachers, family members and friends, and anyone interested in exploring ways to problem solve, navigate their life, advocate for changes in supports can use Charting the LifeCourse.
- Person-Centered Practices
Three elements of person-centered practices:
- Person-Centered Strategies that everyone can use to help people learn about what brings joy to someone and makes life worth living. These tools 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 using social communication skills while changing social settings to prevent challenging behaviors. Positive behavior support is based on research from areas including biomedical and behavioral science that is driven by person-centered and culturally responsive values and uses the science of implementation to create sustainable and lasting using systems change.
- Positive Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement describes the use of 'positive' consequences following desired behavior, or closer approximations to desired behavior. The term 'positive' refers to the addition of something (activity, tangible item, attention from other person) following the desired behavior. Positive reinforcement can be used with individuals or in groups (such as in a classroom). Positive reinforcement can be used to increase prosocial behaviors, such as communication, cooperation, self-regulation (such as paying attention for longer periods of time), tolerance to things in the environment beyond our control (such as tolerance to transitioning activities), and academic skills.
- Quality of Life
This is a term used to describe how a person experiences their standard of health and wellbeing. Quality of life can be broken down into domains: emotional wellness, social interactions, work and employment, financial status, living environment, physical health, intellectual stimulation, and spiritual growth.
- Response to Intervention or RTI
An educational practice that involves early identification of the academic and social supports needed for all students in school. An increasing continuum of interventions is provided to students needing more educational and behavioral support to ensure academic success. The RTI model has three tiers of academic interventions that increase in intensity across each tier. RTI involves effective instruction for all students and universal screening in general education classrooms. Students struggling with academic goals are provided with interventions based on what they need to improve learning outcomes. Student progress is monitored on an ongoing basis with each child receiving the needed intensity and duration of instruction based on the data that are being collected to monitor and improve progress.
- Self-Regulation
The ability to understand and manage one's own behavior as well as reactions to events in one's life. Self-regulation can be used to cope with strong emotions like frustration, fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness. Examples of strategies that help people self-regulate include minduflness, dialectical behavior therapy, and cognitive behavior therapy.
- Systemic Racism
Policies, procedures, structures, and systems that disadvantages marginalized groups. Systemic racism is pervasive and embedded within the core of all major federal, state, and local organizations and institutions in the US.
- 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 work to more effectively deliver mental health services and supports that build on the strengths of individuals and fully address children’s and youths’ needs. These systems are also developed around the principles of being child-centered, family-driven, strength-based and culturally competent, engaging youth and involving interagency collaboration.
- Three Tiered Framework 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 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 problematic 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 will benefit from structured, individualized, and intensive interventions. When a Tier 3 plan is needed a team of people form to support a person. A person-centered plan helps create a vision for what the person’s ideal life and dreams are and an action plan is created with steps for improving quality of life. Practices that will help the person are identified including examples such as positive behavior support, cognitive behavior therapy, trauma informed care, and motivational interviewing.
- Trauma-Informed Support
Systems, training, and tools embedded in organizations to shift the viewpoint towards an understanding that trauma is a widespread issue and that it is important to recognized signs and symptoms of trauma in people receiving services. This information is integrated into policies, procedures, trainings, and practices in order to avoid re-traumatization.
- Universal Design
A process used when making changes in an environment used to ensure the products and settings targeted for change are accessible to a wide range of people with different abilities and characteristics (size, mobility, ages, etc.).
- Wraparound Planning
A Process created to support parents of children and young people with mental health needs and challenging behavior are often expected to communicate with a number of different service systems. Each of these services require parents 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.