The Green Hills AEA Behavior team serves all 53 districts and is comprised of five members. Each team member is domiciled out of the regional office that was assigned to them by regional administrators.
Leah Olson and Amy Hoffman are assigned out of the Osceola Regional Office; Michelle Custer is assigned out of the Avoca Regional Office; Catelyn Newman is assigned out of the Glenwood Regional Office; and Jessica Williar is assigned out of the Council Bluffs Regional Office housed on the Halverson Campus. Halverson is the Central Office for Green Hills AEA.
"Our team provides consultation and support services that may include functional behavior assessments and the development or refinement of a current behavior plan for individual students in which unexpected and complicated behaviors prevent successful learning and interactions within the school setting. Our goal is to help provide services to these children to prevent placements outside of their home districts/schools. During the 2017-2018 school year, our team has received 31 referrals that are either on-going or have been resolved and are being monitored for maintenance of the behavior intervention plan," said Custer.
Council Bluffs School District has participated in advanced training in functional behavior assessment through an apprenticeship training model through the University of Iowa Center for Disabilities and Development in collaboration with the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Adam Weaver, from UNO, was a member of the Challenging Behavior Team at its start in Green Hills AEA. The lead consultant of the Council Bluffs Challenging Behavior Team is an AEA employee and currently serves the Council Bluffs school district. Members of the Green Hills Challenging Behavior Team support the Council Bluffs district as needs arise.
"Special Education Representatives in each school/district are the initiators of our services," said Custer.
They work directly with special education staff and administrators to work through challenging behaviors. The services of the Challenging Behavior Team involves providing specialized functional assessment protocol and behavior specific training geared toward the function of the challenging behavior training.
"Our team also works collaboratively with other specialty teams such as the Autism and Brain Injury teams to ensure quality and fidelity of the recommended and research-based interventions. Teachers and parents are involved to the greatest extent as possible along with all stakeholders of the child’s individual education planning teams," said Custer.
The Green Hills AEA Challenging Behavior team also provides ongoing professional development opportunities for both AEA support staff and school/district employees.
The Challenging Behavior Team was initiated in 2007 due to a need across the state to improve the development of Functional Behavior Assessments, which ultimately drive Behavior Intervention Planning. A grant was written to support an intense and comprehensive training with the goal of least two members of a Challenging Behavior Team in each of the nine state Area Education Agencies to pass an exam, along with several layers of competencies to be considered qualified to conduct a variety of comprehensive school-based behavioral assessments.
These assessments provide the data required to support therapeutic, sound preventative and response strategies, safety plans, and goal setting to develop well-constructed thorough instructional strategies that support a child’s social/emotional behavior. The Iowa Department of Education and Green Hills AEA administration and board have been central in supporting this project.
"Currently, we are in the process of training additional members of our team at the advanced level for sustainability," said Custer.
Green Hills AEA has supported the challenging behavior team through funding, time, and full-time employment opportunities. The ongoing measures to ensure that children whose behaviors negatively impact their ability to successfully engage in school instructional environments along with their peers, is a principle goal for Green Hills AEA.