An Example of Community-wide PBIS Implementation

Post date: Mar 05, 2013 3:54:25 PM

Forest Park is a district continuing to embrace community-wide PBIS by extending PBIS systems and strategies beyond the school setting. In FY12, Forest Park School District 91, the Forest Park Police Department, Park District, Community Center, and Library continued their collaboration to implement community-wide PBIS. A PBIS Leadership Team with community members from each of the participating organizations met to plan for sustaining Tier 1 efforts and to explore possible Tier 2 implementation. The community team had monthly meetings to review progress towards goals and next steps.  Each of the community organizations designated an internal coach to lead their on-site PBIS implementation. Coaches from across all organizations meet monthly to coordinate their efforts community-wide, including implementing PBIS during the All- School Community Picnic by having all adults prompt for behavioral expectations and hand out positive behavior tickets.  The four community organizations and two schools were trained together in Tier 1 PBIS in FY10 and on Tier 2 in FY12. All sites are currently developing systems for continuous teaching and reinforcement of behavioral expectations and have begun consideration of Check-in Check-out and a viable community-wide Tier 2 intervention.

Community-wide PBIS implementation helps the Forest Park community to meet goals around youth safety, coordination of youth supports and services, and partnerships between school and family. In an effort to create a consistent community-level message on PBIS implementation, Forest Park SD 91, the Forest Park Library, Forest Park Community Center and Park District have adopted the same set of behavioral expectations: Be Respectful, Be Safe, and Be Responsible. These expectations are posted in these sites for youth and parents, on the electronic community bulletin board in front of the park and on banners hung in the community during large events like holiday celebrations and the All-School Picnic.  In FY12, the Chamber of Commerce began partnering with the leadership team with the goal of increasing business participation in the Police Department’s acknowledgement system for youth who are seen following the community-wide expectations.  For FY13, the community looks forward to expanding the Police Department’s acknowledgement system (gotchas) with support for crossing guards to use a similar process.

In FY12, the Library, Community Center, and Park District had PBIS Tier 1 fidelity assessed using the School-wide Evaluation Tool (SET) described in Chapter 5.  This  first set of data indicates that all three settings have some degree of implementation with the library earning a SET score of 60/70 (Expectations Taught/Implementation Average). The Library used these data to make improvements in implementation; specifically they enhanced behavioral/PBIS content in the Library Handbook and resubmitted it to their board.  SETs will be done annually in these sites to continue to monitor progress.

For further examples from Forest Park, click here to read previous examples of their community effort. Or click here to view the Forest Park community leaders presentation from the Illinois PBIS Network's 2012 Summer Leadership Conference.