What is Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports? 

One of the foremost advances in school-wide discipline is the emphasis on school-wide systems of support that include proactive strategies for defining, teaching, and supporting appropriate student behaviors to create positive school environments. Instead of using a piecemeal approach of individual behavioral management plans, a continuum of positive behavior support for all students within a school is implemented in areas including the classroom and non-classroom settings (such as hallways, buses, and cafeteria).

Positive behavior support is an application of a behaviorally-based systems approach to enhance the capacity of schools, families, and communities to design effective environments that improve the link between research-validated practices and the environments in which teaching and learning occurs.

Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports is a multi-tiered prevention-intervention model that provides a continuum of positive behavioral support strategies in school settings. Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports fosters positive school environments so that all students, most particularly students with disabilities, can be successfully included within general education programs.

Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports is comprised of three levels of intervention implementation: universal, secondary, and individualized. While the three intervention tiers build upon one another, each tier has a specific intervention focus and process for implementation. Attention is focused on creating and sustaining primary (school-wide), secondary (classroom), and tertiary (individual) systems of support that improve lifestyle results (personal, health, social, family, work, recreation) for all children and youth by making targeted behaviors less effective, efficient, and relevant, and desired behavior more functional.

Adapted from:

New Jersey Positive Behavior Supports in Schools

OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: Effective School-wide Interventions