PALS – a School-wide Program for Positive Behaviour, Support, Interaction and Safety

 
Project name: PALS– a school-wide program for positive behaviour, support, interaction and safety

 

Program responsibility: PALS has been developed and is run by the Norwegian Centre for the Studies on Conduct Problems and Innovative Practice, Unirand, University of Oslo. It is linked to the PMTO treatment program as part of a complete approach to prevent and manage behavioural problems among children. It is part of the Government’s initiatives to prevent, reduce and stop conduct disorders and antisocial behaviour in schools. 
 
Project period: PALS has been developed through a pilot study 2002-05. Training in the PALS program will run for at least 3 years in each school. After that sustainability will be ensured by maintaining supervision within the network groups in school districts. The program started 2002 and is still running. 

 
Number of school participants: From the fall 2002, 4 schools participated. From the fall of 2003, 1 new school participated. From the fall of 2004, 2 new schools participated. From the fall of 2006 there are plans for about 80 new schools to participate.

The program is a three-tiered school-wide approach involving all staff, all students and parents which mean intervention programs at
- universal level for all
- a selected level for some (10-15%) that are at risk of developing problem behaviour
- an indicated level for the few (3-5%) with a high degree of risk of developing antisocial problems/ identified severe behavioural problems. 

Main goal

To reduce problem behaviour among students and to promote the schools’ capacity to prevent and stop problem behaviour (bullying and violence are categories of problem behaviour) in the long run.

- Team-based
- Assess risk and protective factors
- Establish a few well-defined positive rules and expectations
- Teach expectations & social skills to all students
- System to encourage & reward appropriate behaviour
- Systematic Supervision
- Responding to problem behaviour and non-tolerance of bullying
- System for monitoring students’ discipline, assessment & support (Data-based decision making)  
 
The model for providing training in the PALS-programs together with the implementation model aim to:

 

- Develop a school culture and supportive teaching environment where positive behaviour, interaction and social competence are promoted through the involvement of all students and staff in all school arenas.

- Provide the school employees with increased skills to decide, plan and carry through actions to prevent and manage externalized behaviour problems.

- Commitment towards the program: All staff and school administrators will be involved in the program and are obliged to act in accordance with its principles and involve parents and students in the program.  
- Ensure a continuous approach and skills building through the maintenance of the PALS-program

A coordination team will be established (PALS-team) in each school. The team consists of representatives of the school’s staff (teachers of different grades, after school program staff, special education staff) and the school’s administrators, School Psychologist/Counsellor and Parents’ Council. The team’s responsibilities are to implement the program, coordinate and follow-up the development of the work in the school through the involvement of all staff, students and parents. The team has the clear responsibility to endorse active collaboration and participation, use data for decision-making, consider, work through and evaluate actions on each of the three levels in the intervention pyramid.
 
Teams meet weekly. External consultants offer the schools seminars and consultations monthly throughout the first two years. From the third year PALS schools are organised in groups of three to five from the same school district. These schools’ project groups meet five times a year as a professional network in seminars supported by their external consultant. In addition, each school is offered phone consultation by the external consultant.

Each school will receive its own PALS manual, information brochures and materials like rewards, discipline referrals, stickers, posters with the school’s PALS logo and rules, and procedures. Participating schools will also be supplied with the following: a DVD presenting the PALS program (in press), The data-based School-Wide Information System (www.swis.org), the DVD “Reducing and Defusing Anger and Escalation” (http://www.lookiris.com/products/defusing/) and the DVD “Systematic Supervision” (http://www.lookiris.com/products/syssup/).

Throughout the year the staffs are expected to carry out activities in all school settings and systems: the classrooms, outside the classroom and in the common areas, individual student systems and meetings with the parents. The two-year training through is divided into two steps:

- Planning and organizing the school-wide activities during a school year
- Implementation of the first intervention year during the following school year. The PALS-supervisor (coach) has a two-hour information meeting about the content, organization of the training, and implementation structure of the PALS program as support for the management and other resource personnel at each school during the term before start-up.
 
The staff must give their approval before the decision is taken to participate. The PALS-supervisor (coach) follows each PALS school for at least three years through training, supervision and follow-up. After the PALS supervisor (coach) has run a start-up seminar with the entire personnel on the school planning day in August, the training and supervision will occur at a monthly meeting with the school’s PALS team. 

 
In the period between each meeting the team follows up the content of the meetings and runs the process in the school through communication, reflection, discussion and literature reviews in the personnel group. In addition, the PALS supervisor (coach) will assist the team in training the staff in meetings. The purpose of a planning year is to clarify, define and operationalize the school’s aim and systematic work of efforts before the school-wide program is carried out.
 
To secure the successful implementation of and viable adaptation to the PALS program in the school it is essential to have established common behavioural expectations towards a few rules and procedures designed to develop positive behaviour in a supportive learning environment. This is an important contribution to strengthening the collective situation where all members of staff are included and feel committed.
 
Through training and supervision in the program’s core and support components one’s ability to reflect on one’s own practices will grow, through discussion and conversation among adults. The team’s representative on the Parents’ Council will involve the other parents at their meeting point. Active use of role-playing, brainstorming and problem solving are active parts of the methodological approach. Furthermore, concrete plans should be made as to how the school-wide prevention program will be carried out during the following school year. The material is developed individually for each school and used in the concrete accomplishment of the different components in relation to the school-wide, classroom and individual systems in the first year of intervention.

Evaluation Results

Description of evaluation method

The pilot study has a pre-post multi informant design with equivalent compared groups. The pilot study has focused both on the results achieved and the central aspects of the implementation process during the first two years. Eight strategically “matched” elementary schools were selected - four volunteer pilot schools (experimental group) and four invited neighbouring schools (comparison group). The comparison schools were geographically close to the pilot schools, were roughly of the same size, had the same number of students enrolled and, as far as possible, and had a closely similar student base.
 
Data was collected through questionnaires distributed to all the students from the third to seventh grades with written parental consent forms (44 classes), these students’ class teacher, staff of the After School Activities and teachers and other staff with at least a 50% position. The first batches of data were collected in autumn 2002 at the start of PALS (T1), in autumn 2003 after the first year (T2, only in pilot schools), and finally in spring 2004 at the end of the second year, 20 months after the first measurements had been taken (T3).

Description of main findings

All intervention schools registered a decline in problem behaviour observed at school by teachers. The reduction was largest in the schools with most behaviour problems at baseline. PALS stands out as an effective method of intervention:
 
- for school-wide prevention of behaviour problems observed at school by teachers (both high & low-frequency problem behaviour)

- for the prevention of deteriorating learning conditions in class

- for strengthening teachers´ collective efficacy & individual competence in handling problem behaviour  
 
A randomized pre-post study is planned in connection with the planned scaling-up implementation from 2006.

Publication

 

Arnesen, A., M.-A. Sørlie & T. Ogden (2003): Positiv atferd, støttende læringsmiljø og samhandling i skolen. Et skoleomfattende tiltaksprogram, Spesialpedagogikk, 9, 18-27 (In Norwegian only)

 

Sørlie, M.-A., et.al. (in press): Evaluation of a School-wide Prevention and Intervention Program

 

Arnesen, A. & T. Ogden (in press): Kartlegging av elevatferd i skolen (In Norwegian only)