How about sending staff here instead of training them to apply rewards and incentives?

For two days this week, BCS is sending to training a few staff members to learn how to apply a "data driven" token/rewards/incentives system to all the children at BCS - including the vast majority of students who are already behaving well.  Instead, we could send staff to an event such as this lecture by Dr. Stuart Ablon and learn to actually meet the needs of the children actually displaying difficult behaviors: TriFold Ablon FINAL

Kids Do Well If They Can...Dr. Stuart Ablon speaks

How might we reach the children who need help with behavior and making better choices?


Collaborative Problem-Solving focuses on understanding the thinking and behavior of children so that we can help them develop the skills that are needed to behave well.
These skills include:

• Impulse and emotional control
• Problem-solving
• Interpersonal and social skills
• Adaptability

Dr. Stuart Ablon co-authored Treating Explosive Kids-The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach.  Dr. Ablon is currently the Director of Think:Kids and Director of the Psychotherapy Research Program, both at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as being an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  For more information about the work/research being done at Think:Kids please go to www.thinkkids.org.

More in the video series can be found here.

Alternatives: Lost at School, Collaborative Problem Solving

From Dr. Ross W. Greene's Lost at School

“The wasted human potential is tragic. In so many schools, kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges are still poorly understood and treated in a way that is completely at odds with what is now known about how they came to be challenging in the first place.” READ MORE

A quote from Alfie Kohn found on the Lost at School site praising the book:

Greene removes all doubt: Even with challenging kids, rewards and punitive ‘consequences’ can (and should) be replaced with Collaborative Problem Solving. Lost at School is a detailed and immensely practical guide whose approach makes much more sense than behavior management plans and other tactics of control. It’s hard to imagine any educators, counselors, or parents who wouldn’t benefit from reading this book. And their kids will benefit even more.”

Alfie Kohn
Author, Beyond Discipline and Punished by Rewards

More Information on Collaborative Problem Solving can be found at Lives in the Balance.