District-wide Screening for At-risk Students: Strategies for Success

1. District-wide Screening for At-risk Students: Strategies for Success Tim Lewis & Barbara Mitchell University of Missouri Jen Rose Illinois PBIS Network

2. What Do We Know? • Approximately 1in every 4 to 5 youth in the U.S. meets criteria for a mental disorder with severe impairment across their lifetime (Merikangas et al., 2010). • Among those affected only 30% actually receive services (U.S. Public Health Service, 2000)

3. What Do We Know? • The most common conditions include • Anxiety (31.9%) • Behavior disorders (19.1%) • Mood disorders (14.3%) • Substance use disorders (11.4%) • Approximately 40% of individuals meet criteria for multipledisorders. (Merikangas et al., 2010)

4. What Do We Know? • The median age of onset occurs during school-age years • 6 years for anxiety • 11 years for behavior • 13 years for mood • 15 years for substance use disorders. (Merikangas et al., 2010)

5. What Do We Know? • Academic success is linked with social & behavioral skills • Early identification with intervention can decrease the likelihood of academic failure • Prevent onset • Preventive supports reduce the need for more intensive supports later. • Minimize impact of risk

6. Identification Process • Teacher nomination • Existing school data • Universal screening instrument Allows for early intervention? Identifies internalizing & externalizing?

7. Screening • Simply indicates there might be an issue • Not intended to be: • Prescriptive • Evaluative • Will require additional data triangulation to provide appropriate supports

8. Systematic Screening • Advantages • Fast, efficient, and respectful • Include all children and youth of interest • If we make an error, the error tends to identify students who are not at-risk • Informs schools about the student population • Find groups of students with common needs • Facilitates resource mapping of services (University of Oregon Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior)

9. Systematic Screening • Not common because… • Schools tend to be a reactive rather than proactive with respect to behavior • Impression that kids will “grow out of it” • Concern about profiling/stigmatizing • Fear of costs and potential to identify large number of EBD students

10. Systematic Screening • Not Common Because • Easier to screen vision & hearing because response falls in the realm of the parents • Political realities of managing parent reactions to behavior screenings; confidentiality • Systems skill set • Do we know how to respond to behavior with the same confidence that we respond to academic concerns?

11. Systematic Screening • Screening Instruments at a Glance • Name of Instrument • Description / Use • Age of Students • Method • Time to Administer • Cost • Ordering Information

12. pbismissouri.org

13. Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports:A Multi-Tiered System of Support Model (MTSS) Tier 1/Universal School-Wide Assessment School-Wide Prevention Systems ODRs,Credits, Attendance, Tardies, Grades, DIBELS, etc. Tier 2/Secondary Tier 3/ Tertiary Check-in Check-out (CICO) Intervention Assessment Social/Academic InstructionalGroups (SAIG) Daily Progress Report (DPR)(Behavior and Academic Goals) Group Intervention with Individualized Feature (e.g., CICO with ind. features and Mentoring) Competing Behavior Pathway, Functional Assessment Interview, Scatter Plots, etc. Brief Functional Behavior Assessment/ Behavior Intervention Planning(FBA/BIP) Individual Student Information System (ISIS) Complex or Multiple-domain FBA/BIP Person Centered Planning: Wraparound/RENEW Family Focus SIMEO Tools: HSC-T, SD-T, EI-T Illinois PBIS Network, Revised Aug. 2013 Adapted from T. Scott, 2004

14. Illinois PBIS Network: Screening Instruments Used During Demonstration Project

15. Illinois PBIS Network Multiple Gating Procedure (Adapted from Walker & Severson, 1992) Teachers Rank Order then Select Top 3 Students on Each Dimension (Externalizing & Internalizing) Gate 1 Pass Gate 1 Teachers Rate Top 3 Students in Each Dimension (Externalizing & Internalizing) using either SSBD, BASC-2/BESS, or other evidence-based instrument Gate 2 Tier 2 Intervention Pass Gate 2

16. Illinois PBIS Network: Process Summary • Timeline of events • Developed materials to support screening process • Parent information letter (English & Spanish versions) • Overview and administration power points • Universal screening implementation timeline • Teacher ranking and timeline documents • Scoring tool for excel • Parent permission letter for tier 2 intervention (English & Spanish versions) • Documents are available at www.pbisillinois.org under ‘Curriculum’ tab • Identified and trained in-district universal screening coordinators • Led overview meetings with instructional staff • Co-facilitated screenings • Coached tier 2 teams in review of results and implementation of simple tier 2 intervention (e.g., CICO)

17. Illinois PBIS Network: Parent Information Letter

18. Illinois PBIS Network: Screening Implementation Timeline

19. Illinois PBIS Network: Teacher Ranking and Timeline Document

20. Illinois PBIS Network: Results Summary • During the last year of the grant, 2010‐11 61 Illinois schools screened approximately 28,000 students representing a diverse demographic profile: • White, 32% Black/African American, 20% Hispanic/Latino, 38%

21. Illinois PBIS Network

22. Illinois PBIS Network:Current Status • Two years following the conclusion of the grant, the practice of universal screening is showing evidence of sustainability • In the 2012-13 school year, sixty schools across seven geographically-dispersed districts provided documentation of implementing universal screening for behavior • Expanded selection of universal screening instruments to include the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in 14 schools

23. Illinois PBIS Network: Universal screening readiness checklist • Build a foundation • Secure district and building-level administrative support for universal screening • Establish universal screening committee consisting of district and building-level administrators, student support personnel, teachers, family and community representatives and assign roles • Clarify goals • Identify purpose of universal screening (e.g., mental health, social skills assessment) • Determine desired outcomes

24. Illinois PBIS Network: Universal screening readiness checklist • Identify resources and logistics • Identify resources for supporting students identified via screening (in-school and community-based) • Create a timeline for executing screening process including frequency of screening (e.g., once, or multiple times per year?) • Develop budget for materials, staff, etc. • Create administration materials (e.g., power point to share process with staff, parents and community members, consent forms, teacher checklists) • Schedule dates for screening(s) and meetings to share school-wide results

25. Illinois PBIS Network: Universal screening readiness checklist • Select an evidence-based screening instrument • Use TheStandards for Educational and Psychological Testing, or resources from other professional organization resources (e.g., National Association for School Psychologists; NASP), as guidelines for selecting an appropriate screener

26. Illinois PBIS Network: Universal screening readiness checklist • Data • Develop data collection and progress monitoring system • Determine systematic process for using results to inform interventions • Plan for sharing screening and progress monitoring results with staff and families