The Maine Department of Education (DOE) is partnering with Lives in the Balance, a Maine founded and nationally renowned organization that uses evidence based practice approaches to support schools seeking to reduce their use of Restraint and Seclusion.
Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) is the evidence-based model of care that helps educators focus on identifying the problems that are causing concerning behaviors in students and solving those problems collaboratively and proactively. The model is a departure from approaches emphasizing the use of consequences to modify concerning behaviors. In families, general and special education schools, inpatient psychiatry units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities, the CPS model has a track record of dramatically improving behavior and dramatically reducing or eliminating discipline referrals, detentions, suspensions, restraints, and seclusions. The CPS model is non-punitive, non-exclusionary, trauma-informed, transdiagnostic, and transcultural.
Lives in the Balance will be offering free technical support and training in the CPS model to Maine schools working to reduce or prevent the use of restraint and seclusion.
Webpage link: https://www.maine.gov/doe/reducerestraintandseclusion
For more information, reach out to Bear Shea, Maine DOE Mental Health / School Counselor Specialist at w.bear.shea@maine.gov.