NorthStar instruction is centered around the Georgia Performance Standards. The performance standards provide clear expectations for instruction, assessment, and student work. They define the level of work that demonstrates achievement of the standards, enabling a teacher to know “how good is good enough.” The performance standards isolate and identify the skills needed to use the knowledge and skills to problem-solve, reason, communicate, and make connections with other information. They also tell the teacher how to assess the extent to which the student knows the material or can manipulate and apply the information. The performance standard incorporates the content standard, which simply tells the teacher what a student is expected to know (i.e., what concepts he or she is expected to master). Additionally, it adds to these concepts by providing three additional items: suggested tasks, sample student work, and teacher commentary on that work.

I-Ready

Many students that are referred to a GNETS have a history of performing below grade level standards.  This difficulty learning may be due to neurological issues related to the student’s disability and/or a result of missed instructional time due to frequent, intense, and severe behavioral problems.  Common areas where students are behind grade age peers are in the areas of reading, writing, and math.  All GNETS programs utilize the I-Ready program to address these learning difficulties in these areas.

 The I-Ready software package delivers student instruction, performance diagnostics, and progress reports based on Georgia Performance Standards in Mathematics and Reading. Students take the I-Ready Diagnostic and receive differentiated online instruction according to their ability. Teachers also have the ability to supplement the online instructional modules using teacher delivered lessons that align to the learning needs of the student.

Many students referred to NorthStar struggle in environments that use traditional instructional methods. A growing body of research suggests that keeping students active and engaged during classroom instruction is a critical variable in helping our students be successful.  NorthStar’s commitment to fostering a climate of active learning led us to join colleagues from the school systems that we serve in a collaborative learning community. The group is working with Dr. Emily Rubin and her colleagues (Emory University / Marcus Autism Center) to master a training and coaching model designed to foster implementation of the See-ks framework for supporting the social emotional development and social and academic engagement of students. The program helps teachers understand the research on social emotional engagement, assists them in discovering ways to create a positive learning climate and provides a model for creating lesson plans from a universal design for learning approach.

Research has clearly shown that in order to effectively analyze the behavioral difficulties of the children in our care, staff must first be trained to identify the purpose or motivation for the student to engage in the behavior (called the “function”).  Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) is a process for gathering information to understand the function or purpose of a behavior.  A functional behavior assessment is typically used when the interventions that are being used are not working or the team feels that more information is needed to understand why the student is engaging in particular behaviors.  A comprehensive FBA is designed to elicit more information about the events that are occurring around the behavior (setting events, antecedents and consequences) so that the function(s) of the behavior can be accurately identified.  Once a clear function has been identified, then treatment interventions can be differentially applied to create a more effective behavior intervention plan.  All GNETS staff are trained in a method for conducting FBA’s and creating BIP’s using a model developed by researchers at Georgia State University.

The students referred to NorthStar often have habits of behavior that bring them interfere with their ability to learn, control their emotions, and get along with others. The reasons for these habits are extremely varied (neurological and mental health issues, learning history, trauma and abuse histories).  Several different skill building curriculums are used to address these special learning needs.  These curriculums include social skills programs (Boys Town Educational Model) and emotional regulation skills (Dialectical Behavior skills/MindUP, and Zones of Regulation).

Teacher spend time each day with students in a skill building sessions. Lessons are targeted to the specific need areas of the students in the classroom. In regards to the Zones of Regulation Curriculum and Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills, therapeutic staff assist with introducing the skills in group and individual learning activities.  Teacher’s then continue to coach students in the use of these skill in “teachable moments” throughout the academic day.  The goal is to help students develop healthy and effective skills for relating to and interacting with others and managing their emotions and to increase their abilities to use these skills independently in the least restrictive environment where they can be successful.

Below are brief descriptions of the curriculums used for empowering students with new skills.

Boys Town Social Skills

"The Boys Town Education Model (BTEM) was developed in 1979 and is an extension of the Boys Town Family Home Program (Coughlin & Shanahan, 1986) and the Teaching Family Model (Phillips, Phillips, Fixsen & Wolf, 1973). Boys Town has been a leader in working with schools to integrate effective practices for teaching social skills and more importantly on supportive techniques for ensuring this skill knowledge is integrated into the daily habits of students through coaching and use of contingent consequences. These elements contribute to a system-wide approach that fosters respectful and caring staff/student interactions by fundamentally changing the way schools address discipline and deal with student behavior.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a therapy designed to help people change patterns of behavior that are not helpful, such as self-harm, suicidal thinking, and substance abuse. This approach works towards helping people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation by learning about the triggers that lead to reactive states and helping to assess which coping skills to apply in the sequence of events, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to help avoid undesired reactions. DBT assumes that people are doing the best they can but are either lacking the skills or influenced by positive or negative reinforcement that interfere with their ability to function appropriately.

NorthStar teaches skills from two primary modules within the DBT curriculum; distress tolerance and emotional regulation.  Distress tolerance skills are designed to help students learn to accept, find meaning for, and tolerate distress when it occurs in their lives. Stress is a normal part of life and learning how to deal with it in a healthy way is critical for life-long success.  Emotional regulation skills help students learn to manage their emotions in healthy ways. 

MindUP

MindUP™ is a research-based training program for educators and children. This program is composed of 15 lessons based in neuroscience. Students learn to self-regulate behavior and mindfully engage in focused concentration required for academic success. MindUP™ lessons align with all state standards including Common Core and support improved academic performance while enhancing perspective taking, empathy and kindness as well as fostering complex problem-solving skills. 

Zones of Regulation

For our younger students, NorthStar uses the Zones of Regulation program. This program helps students sort out complex emotions by teaching them to categorize what they are feeling into one of four color zones:  Red for heightened alertness and intense feelings (anger, intense sadness, terror); Yellow for elevated emotions and heightened emotions (anxiety, stress, nervousness); Green for calm and alert (happy, focused, content); and Blue for states of  low alertness (sadness, boredom, exhaustion).  Students are then talk with staff about strategies they could use to help themselves achieve a more desired state.  The curriculum helps students develop strategies for self-control, resiliency, self-management, anger control, impulse control and sensory regulation.

Many crisis situations can be effectively avoided when teacher's have the skills to intervene early to co-manage a student through a difficult situation.  NorthStar teachers are trained in a variety of crisis communication strategies (Mindset, Strategies for Managing Resistant Behavior), as well as Level I LSCI interventions (drain-off, timeline, and skill reteaching) and the Person Brain Model.  They are then taught how to individualize the use of these strategies to each student through the development of a Behavior Intervention Plan.  This intervention plan is what guides crisis intervention both for classroom and support staff.

Specially trained staff use a combination of deescalation strategies to effectively help co-manage student's through situations where they have become emotionally disregulated and require more intensive 1:1 support.  Staff continue to work with the students once they are calm to process the incident, build insight for the student regarding patterns of their behavior, and to teach and practice replacement skills and behaviors that could have been used to successfully handle the situation.

The crisis strategies are derived from four primary intervention programs:

* Strategies for managing resistant behavior (Boys Town / Student Achievement Model):  This model includes general deescalation strategies with a process for teaching replacement skills and applying contingencies.

* Mindset Strategies:  This program includes strategies for proactively avoiding crisis situations, communicating during resistance and a crisis, and responding to potentially dangerous student behavior.

* Life Space Crisis Intervention:  This program includes tools for successful deescalation, as well as interviews to help the student gain insight in how they use behaviors to get their needs met. Staff are trained to help students problem solve more effective ways of responding that would lead to less negative consequences for the student and others around them.

* Person Brain Model: This training helps staff develop an understanding of the neurological processes that impact a student's behavior in schools. Special focus is placed on the role of relationships and the therapeutic management of crisis level behaviors.

Our Social Workers and Psychologist work with students in group sessions to introduce students to the appropriate emotional regulation curriculum (Dialectical Behavior Therapy/Zones of Regulation) and our Trauma Focused Curriculum (Sanctuary Model S.E.L.F. curriculum).

Therapeutic staff also work with specific students in individual counseling sessions targeted towards specific issues identified as needing support.  Staff use a variety of therapeutic techniques in these sessions including cognitive-behavioral therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Trauma Focused Intervention, Systematic Desensitization, Relaxation Strategies, Anger Control Training, and problem solving counseling with a focus on skill implementation in the the school environment.

Therapeutic staff are also trained to assist in more intensive situations where students may be psychologically unstable (mental health crisis assessments) or experiencing suicidal or homicidal ideations or behaviors. Staff work to initially assess the situation, provide interim supports to the student and staff, and engage external support services in coordination with the family.

PBIS is a school wide system that helps to support a positive climate and positive and productive student behaviors.  The program provides guidelines and structures to help staff achieve the following goals:

• Develop a continuum of scientifically based behavior and academic interventions and supports
• Use data to make decisions and solve problems
• Arrange the environment to prevent the development and occurrence of problem behavior
• Teach and encourage prosocial skills and behaviors
• Implement evidence-based behavioral practices with fidelity and accountability
• Screen universally and monitor student performance & progress continuously

A reality for many students with emotional and behavioral disorders is often that either both the student and the family have often experienced traumatic events in their lives. These experiences can have dramatic effects on the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals experiencing or witnessing traumatic events. At NorthStar, we are committed to that as an organization we are informed about the widespread impact of trauma and understand the potential paths for recovery.  Each staff is trained to identify the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, other staff members, and others that might be consumers of our services. We then work to fully integrate our knowledge about trauma into our policies, procedures, and practices, and seek to actively resist any behaviors that might re-traumatize individuals with whom we interact.  This trauma-informed knowledge becomes the foundation for all other interventions that we use within the program.

NorthStar knows that in order to succeed, each staff member has to be able to lead and influence others in positive ways. In order to assist staff in building their skills and abilities in this area, targeted staff go through training to assess their own leadership strengths and weaknesses and then learn core leadership principles for increasing and deepening their own leadership abilities.