The Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency’s (MBAEA) Challenging Behavior Team (CBT) was created in 2011 as part of a state-wide collaboration with Iowa’s Area Education Agencies (AEA), the Iowa Department of Education, and the University of Iowa. The goal is to train AEA support staff in Applied Behavior Analysis technology to improve students’ Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) across the state. Dr. David Wacker and his staff at the University of Iowa, BioBehavioral Clinic were charged with providing direct training in experimental analysis and behavioral intervention development to identified AEA support staff. This training occurred both within the school setting and within the clinic setting. As a result of this project, teams were created within each AEA to provide staff certification in Iowa to conduct higher-level behavioral assessments and train additional AEA support staff. The end-goal is to build capacity across Iowa for high-quality FBAs and BIPs.
At MBAEA, Sarah S. Bergthold, PhD, BCBA was hired to lead the charge. Dr. Bergthold was tasked with interviewing and hiring support staff to develop the Challenging Behavior Team. The team was officially established in 2012 and included the following team members: Jill Andresen, Ryan Gonzalez, Nena Sullivan, and Wendy Williams. The CBT has expanded to include an additional member, Kris Vollbeer. When the CBT was developed, Dr. Bergthold also collaborated with the Autism Resource Team, currently led by Patrick Judkins, and also includes LouAnn Whitaker with support from Dr. Bergthold. The team as a whole is referred to as the Autism Resource Challenging Behavior Team (ARCBT).
Over the past 12 years, the team has received over 500 referrals, averaging approximately 50 per year (except for 2020-2021), and tend to be proportionate to the number of students in the district. Referrals are accepted by AEA support staff and may include all behavior concerns and social-emotional behavioral health concerns for typically developing students, students with intellectual disabilities, students with autism, a wide range of mental health diagnoses, multi-disabilities, and low-incidence students. The team also accepts referrals for all age ranges from early access to the early adult years for our students with continuing education needs. Referrals are accepted from all twenty-one MBAEA school districts, and both public and non-public schools have utilized the support services of the ARCBT.
In 2016, Dr. Bergthold, and her team, worked with Dr. Wacker to develop the MBAEA Behavior Clinic. The clinic emulates the University of Iowa BioBehavioral Clinic and provides the same services for school teams to access for students. The clinic was developed to allow for high-stakes assessment of students who may not be accessing school due to dangerous behaviors, due to the intensity/severity of the behaviors, and for the safety of students and staff in the classroom setting. Since 2016, the CBT has provided necessary behavior assessments for over 70 students. The CBT then works with school teams/staff and parents to develop appropriate behavioral interventions that can be implemented in the school setting and/or classroom. If the student is not accessing school due to behavior, the team supports a generalization plan for that student to return to school. The clinic has also served as a training model for AEA support staff, teachers/school staff, and parents to address social-emotional behavioral concerns.
In addition to direct service for students with challenging behaviors, the ARCBT provides indirect consultation services to AEA support staff, classroom-wide support to districts, training to AEA and district staff, professional learning opportunities for teachers/buildings/districts, and para certification training for students with Autism.
For more information or support, please contact Sarah S. Bergthold, PhD, BCBA at sbergthold@aea9.k12.ia.us