As the new school year approaches so does the opportunity for a fresh start. While you prepare for the new year of advocacy, set new goals, and reflect on your approaches, successes, and obstacles from the year before, it is important to understand the fundamentals of successful advocacy from a behavioral perspective. Doing so will only enhance advocacy efforts in improving quality, and types of services delivered. So, what does behavior have to do with it? Well behavior is defined as anything a person (living being) does. In order for the advocated services or changes to occur, it requires people to engage in behaviors that align with those changes or services. For example, if little Johnny's parents want more frequent communication with the school to better help Little Johnny at home, they can verbally advocate/request that. In order for more frequent communication to occur the staff member/teacher must engage in a series of behaviors on a schedule of some sort, agreed upon between family and teacher, such as write a little note and put it in Little Johnny's backpack at the end of the day every Friday. So how does helping to understand behavior increase the likelihood that the advocated behavior will occur more often in the future? To understand this, is it important to have a basic understanding of the behavior principal called reinforcement. In simple terms reinforcement when delivered after a behavior will increase, reinforce, or strengthen that behavior. In other words that behavior will continue to occur in the future and may even occur more often so long as it meets that outcome some of the time. Different things are reinforcing to different people. Some people love to hear praise while for others praise may be embarrassing/punishing. The way to know whether what you are doing is reinforcing or not is to look at the behavior, is it continuing and increasing or is it decreasing or not occurring at all? How does this help Little Johnny's teacher to write that note every Friday? Put yourself for a moment into the teachers shoes. School days are hectic and teachers are stretched thin in many directions with deadlines looming over their heads constantly. Say a teacher agreed to write that weekly progress note and send it home. A little thank you or verbal praise for that specific behavior from time to time when delivered to the teacher for their efforts can go a long way. It serves several purposes. One, its a genuine thank you that makes the teacher feel appreciated (something teachers don't hear often enough) and second it's also a reminder to the teacher of how helpful and important those communication notes are. Thus the chances that the teacher will remember to send those notes on a regular basis or perhaps even send them more often vs forget from time to time will increase. Understanding behavior and reinforcement are essential to successful advocacy practices and therefore improved outcomes for individuals. There is an old saying that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Think of the honey as reinforcement and the vinegar as punishment. Can you to get people to do what you want or need for an individual by engaging in punishing behaviors (undermining peoples professional expertise, threatening law suits, talking down to people, etc.) when advocating? Sure you can. Will the quality be the same? Probably not. This is not to say that in some extreme instances when all other measures are exhausted more intense advocacy practices such as due process aren't needed, however resorting to these from the get go damages relationships. And even if you do go the more extreme route, you still need to have those relationships in tact as the process can take time and the individual being advocated for still needs the best care possible. So in preparation for this new year of advocacy take care to remember that you are one part of the team and teams produce better outcomes for the individuals they serve when they are united rather than divided. As the school year starts, whether you are a parent, a teacher, an advocate, a lawyer or other related service provider take some time to get to know the other members of the team and work on building relationships with them over time. Dole out positive reinforcement in the form or praise, notes etc. to acknowledge the hard work team members put in. Make sure you are specific in praising or reinforcing the exact behaviors you like and want to see more of, so that when it comes to a topic of need where not everyone may agree, team members will be more open to compromise and or finding creative solutions that satisfy the individuals needs. Therefore improving outcomes in the long run. Photo Credit: SUFY. Puzzle Advocacy Picture. Retrieved from: http://www.sufy.org.au/2015/09/18/test-blog/ No Copyright Intended.
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