Who, What, Where, When, Why and Trust

Who:   

My name is Stacy, I'm a Behavior Specialist. I'm licensed through the Washington State Department of Health as a Certified Behavior Technician. 

What:

I am contracted by various school districts in Northwest Washington to work with students that engage in challenging behaviors. Behaviors that impact their ability to learn at school and often interrupt the learning of their peers, as well. 

Where:

I go where I am needed. I work in classrooms, resource rooms, hallways, playgrounds and libraries in Primary, Elementary, Middle and High Schools; sometimes even in the District Offices.

When:

I've worked with special needs students in schools since 2014 and I plan to continue helping kids access education as long as I can.

Why:

I was an unruly kid who didn't understand how to "fit in", I was hyperactive, awkward and got into a lot of trouble.  I want to help my students learn how to learn so that they don't have to suffer through figuring out how to regulate themselves and cope with the stresses of the world alone, through trial and error, like I had to.

These students are not "bad" or "dangerous" and they are not "troublemakers". Unfortunately, they often get labeled as difficult or worse because they are misunderstood. These students are struggling and their behavior is the only way they know how to communicate those struggles with others. They are just kids trying to regulate their emotions in a challenging, demanding, and overstimulating environment.

Simplified as much as possible, my job is to teach my students how to get their needs met without harming themselves or others and without disrupting the learning of their peers. 

I teach self advocacy; how to ask for what they need in a healthy, positive and respectful way. If you never learn how to ask for the things you need and want then you won't get the things you need and want in life.  Nobody just gets handed everything they need to be successful, you have to know how to ask for it!

Being a Behavior Specialist is so much more complicated than just teaching better ways to communicate needs.  I'll try to summarize it as best I can but as no two kids are the same, my job is ever evolving. I'm constantly learning and growing as a professional to meet the needs of my students better. 

The single most important task to be done is getting to know my student.  I have to establish rapport with each student I work with or I wont be successful teaching them anything. I have to quickly become someone they want to spend time with and someone they can trust. 

I usually start with a preferred activity, I take time to listen to them, remembering details about what they tell me; what they like and what may be a trigger for them. While engaged in a preferred activity with all my attention on them, they tend to open up and tell me about themselves. I've learned so much by letting them guide the conversation and asking follow up questions directly related to what they tell me. Students talk about their favorite things, their families, friends and whatever else they value. 

Some of the students are non-verbal, meaning they do not speak words to communicate with others. This doesn't mean they are completely mute as they often use their voices to make sounds to convey ideas but mostly their speech is non-productive. 

They have different ways of communicating but they are very much wanting to interact with and be understood by others around them. Some have learned to use an iPad with a special app as their voice; they push buttons and the iPad speaks the corresponding words out loud. Others use basic icons printed out, laminated and stored in a binder to communicate.  Non-verbal observations are very important when you cannot rely on speech; body language, facial expressions, and small movements can be observed and analyzed for better understanding of their needs.

In these cases this process of getting to know them looks and sounds a bit different but either way I'm gathering as much information as I can to learn more about their behaviors and build that rapport with them. 

One of the first things I want to teach is the importance of doing what you say you're going to do and the value of building relationships with others. 

We talk about trust; what it is, why it's important to be trustworthy, who to trust, how to earn trust, how trust is lost and how to restore it again when it's been lost.