40 Big Ideas

Summary

Positive behavior support helps families, schools, and others think about why certain behaviors are happening instead of only thinking about punishment. It makes sure everyone has the same rights. It also makes sure each person’s values and culture are respected.

All social behavior occurs for a reason. It is important to understand challenging social interactions so that we can create settings that are person centered and positive for everyone. Positive behavior support (PBS), combines the science of behavior with mental health and wellness strategies to improve the quality of life for children and adults across the lifespan. PBS was developing at the same time as the Civil Rights Movement as a way to remove punishment-based programs and make sure that everyone has the same rights as others. Using PBS can help improve the quality of life and prevent challenging behaviors that occur between people. It can decrease behaviors triggered by internal, physical, or mental health events. PBS uses the person-centered and cultural values people believe are important in their communities to drive systems change in preschools, family settings, classrooms and schools, human service organizations, and across communities. Being person centered means that we act in ways that move away from doing things that people feel are exerting power over them and instead focus on sharing power with others. One step further in this logic is to use PBS as a way to foster power within each person by sharing tools that can be used by children and adults across their lifespan to lead their own meetings, solve their own challenges, build positive friendships, and manage strong emotions.

PBS is shaped over time by new findings and in response to a community’s core values. These values include an increasing awareness that the term “challenging behavior” is viewed by some people as a way to convey judgment on someone else. Words like challenging behavior or problem behavior have been used to place blame on a person receiving services when the real issue is the failure of the services to support them. PBS involves helping people recognize their own role when a challenging behavior occurs in order to find ways to do things differently. Including people who have used PBS in the past as leaders in training and research helps us think about and prevent challenging social interactions in a different way.

As a person who has used PBS and taught it to staff members and others, I (DuPree) believe it can help communities. PBS is something everyone can use to prevent conflicts. It helps us be more person centered and understand other people and ourselves better. Using positive strategies helps people understand that when someone says something that feels negative, they don’t mean to attack you or to be mean; they are trying to help. There are things everyone can do to help prevent a conflict using PBS.

Communities that embrace PBS build stronger social connections with others, place people with lived experience with services in leadership roles to improve communication, and honor each person's unique values and culture.