December 2016 - vol. 31 no. 4

CCBD Research and Service Awards Nominations are Now Open!!!!

Outstanding Professional Performance Award

Outstanding Leadership Award

Carl Fenichel Memorial Research Award

CCBD Regional Teacher of the Year Award (2017 - Greater New England Area)

Click here for more information regarding these awards and the nomination process

Member Announcement

After several years of careful consideration and planning, we are pleased to announce and celebrate the transition of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (CCBD) Journals, Behavioral Disorders (BD) and Beyond Behavior, to the Hammill Institute on Disabilities (a non-profit, public charity) beginning with issues Volume 42, Issue 2 and Volume 26, Number 1, respectively, without a lapse in service.

We appreciate the vision and leadership of the CCBD Publication Committee led by Kimberly Vannest over the past several years. This committee has worked closely with the CCBD Executive Committee and Presidential lines for several years to secure the future of both CCBD journals by expanding their reach with the support of the Hammill Institute on Disabilities. We appreciate their due diligence and are excited about this transition.

Click here for the complete announcement letter regarding the CCBD journals

Let your voice be heard!

The Advocacy and Governmental Relations Committee (AGR) is seeking ideas on topics for our 2017 focus to assist those who work with children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders. We began soliciting ideas from attendees at the Teacher Educators for Children with Behavior Disorders Conference this past October and wish to hear your ideas too.

Share your topical ideas with us through the survey on the CCBD website - www.ccbd.net - or by contacting any of the members of the CCBD Executive Committee between now and January 15, 2017.

Some past topical ideas have included: seclusion and restraint, position paper on response to intervention, mental health and PBIS monograph, and policy paper on disproportionality -- all of which, and many more, are available on the CCBD website.

Also, if you are interested in assisting with the researching, writing, and presenting of a topical idea in tandem with the AGR and the CCBD Executive Committee, please indicate the topic and your contact information on the website survey.

We look forward to hearing from you! 

CCBD Call for Nominations

Open now through January 5, 2017

CCBD is calling for nominations for four open Executive Committee positions. Full descriptions of each office are available on the CCBD website http://www.ccbd.net/home and more information can be obtained by contacting Wendy Oakes (contact info below).

Vice President – 1-year term
The Vice President is an extremely important role as this person will serve one year before ascending to President Elect, President, and then Past President over 4 consecutive years.

Secretary – 2-year term
The Secretary maintains a record of all proceedings of all CCBD membership and Executive Committee meetings. The Secretary conducts correspondence as necessary for the business of the division and maintains an archive of CCBD documents.

Treasurer – 4 year term
The treasurer maintains an accounting for all funds in the manner prescribed by the Executive Committee. Prepares a projected annual budget for presentation at the annual meeting and makes reports to the Executive Committee at the monthly Executive Committee meetings and at the annual membership meeting. Records concerning CCBD funds under direct control of the treasurer with regular oversight by the Executive Committee. Maintains Articles of Incorporation and works closely with the Secretary, Executive Secretary and President to maintain all financial
records.

Student Member-at-Large – 2-year term
The Student MAL is a student in special education or related field and does not hold a full time professional position in the field. Student MAL establishes and maintains a communication network to recruit student members and ensure an active voice in CCBD activities and decision making. The Student MAL also works with the president-elect to prepare the CCBD program for the CEC Convention and Expo.

Representative to the CEC Representative Assembly (Representative “B”) – 2-year term
Representatives to the CEC Representative Assembly provide a crucial link between CCBD and the larger CEC organization, acting as a liaison between the CCBD Executive Committee, CCBD Regional Membership, and CEC.

Elections and Nominations Committee Member – 3-year term
The Elections and Nominations committee members work with the Past President to conduct elections according to the CCBD Constitution and By-Laws.

Nominators must send a signed letter to the CCBD Nominations and Elections Chair Wendy
Oakes. This letter must include the nominator's CCBD membership number to validate CCBD
membership of the nominator.
Wendy Oakes
Wendy.Oakes@asu.edu
Arizona State University
P.O. Box 87-5411
Tempe, AZ 85287-5411

Individuals nominated by another party must affirm their agreement by a separate letter to the Nominations and Elections Committee Chairperson, and must include the following materials:

• Statement from nominee, separate from the nominator’s letter agreeing to be nominated.
• CEC membership number of the nominee, to valid CCBD membership.
• Three-part statement that presents, in 1,000 words or fewer, the following:

          a. issue(s) relevant for the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (may
              involve students, professionals, or other issues);
          b. proposed responses needed to deal with issue(s) identified, and
          c. how the nominee, if elected, can work on the CCBD Executive Committee in responding
              to these issue(s).

Condensed resume or vita (maximum of three pages).

• A ballot statement describing nominee’s qualifications, perspectives, and/or goals. This will be included in the ballot verbatim, and length must not exceed 100 words.
• A photograph (ideally professional headshot) to be used on the ballot and CCBD social media (website, Facebook, Twitter, Behavior Today newsletter, etc.) Submitting the photograph serves as permission to use the photo in CCBD media.

The Deadline for nominations and all supporting material for offices is January 5, 2017 and the election period will begin no later than February 15, 2017 and end no later than March 15, 2017.  

New: CCBD Crossword!!  

Crossword Answers:

Across:                Down: 

M&M                Smile

Patience                Naked

Bad Hair Day            Margarita

Advocate                Data

The Janus Project: Conversations from Leaders in the Field

A Conversation with John Maag 

Jim Teagarden, Robert Zabel, & Marilyn Kaff

Kansas State University

The Janus Project takes its name from the Roman god, Janus whose two faces looked both to the past and the future. For the past decade the Janus Project has collected and disseminated the reflections of the leaders in the field of education of children with emotional and behavioral disorders regarding the past, present, and future of the profession. The Midwest Symposium for Leadership in Behavior Disorders (MSLBD) has provided support for this project. Each participant is asked questions designed to tap their recollections about the people and events that have influenced their career, the state of the field, and advice they would offer to those entering the field. To date nearly 70 conversations have been collected in video form at the following URL:

http://www.mslbd.org/stories_and_information_interviews_with_profession…

Dr. John Maag is a professor of Special Education at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (UNL) focusing on the education and treatment of children with emotional and behavioral disorders. Dr. Maag has received the UNL Distinguished Teaching Award and has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters. In addition, he has authored four books, one of which, Parenting Without Punishment, won a Parent’s Choice Award. What follows is based upon excerpts from a conversation with Dr. Maag. 

*****

JANUS:  How did you get into the field of emotional and behavioral disorders?

Maag: Kind of by accident, I took a rather different route. When I finished high school I wasn’t even going to go to college. I played music since I was a little kid, and my friends and I were going get an apartment, start a band, and write some songs. Then they all went to college. So I was scrambling for somewhere to go and ended up in a small school in Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin - Stout. 

I didn’t know what to major in but my roommate was in Vocational Rehabilitation. I didn’t know anything about that but I took Abnormal Psychology and was hooked. I just loved the whole idea of behavior and deviance. From there it was a question of what to do with it. I stayed at that college for about 3 years. I went back home and worked for awhile and then went to Arizona State. I asked what can I do with a bachelors degree in Psychology, started looking around, and found that Special Education encompasses mental health and behavior issues. I ended up doing both and eventually met Rob Rutherford ASU.

When I was in high school I was never an ideal student. I think my cumulative GPA in high school was a sterling 1.8. I loved high school but I didn’t like the classes. I didn’t know anything about being in education.  Even back then it seemed like something wasn’t right. It seemed like one size fit all, but I don’t think kids, including myself, were like that. That perception didn’t mean anything to me back then, but looking back it had quite a bit to do in my thinking about education.

JANUS:  What do you see as having had the greatest positive impact on the field and also the greatest negative impact?

Maag:  I think the wrap around movement has had the greatest positive impact on the field in terms of saying that mental health, public education, and community can work together. We can always debate how effective that has been and if people have figured out the logistics of doing it well. I think there was a greater awareness of the role that mental health can and should play in schools. I think related services under IDEA had a large impact as well as a greater awareness of suicide and suicide prevention. If nothing else that raised the awareness that behavior, emotional/behavior disorders, mental health issues are something that can be addressed. After all, in what other environment outside the home are children’s behaviors under ongoing assessment? I think that this has been positive for a lot of people. 

As for negative impacts, it has to be zero tolerance policies. Whenever you focus on exclusionary practices they will be used, abused and overused. Outside of school-wide positive behavior support, most school-wide discipline programs focus very, very heavily on exclusionary components. It is very easy to exclude a kid and that is negatively reinforcing for the teacher. Unfortunately, it is for the student as well. When I speak to groups of teachers, one of the things I will say is that exclusion is not a therapeutic tool, it is a safety tool.

In the area of behavior disorders, perhaps a positive is looking beyond children with emotional behavioral disorders - not forgetting them, but understanding that behavior problems are not just isolated to children identified under IDEA as having emotional/behavior disorders. I think that is a huge area where our field can grow. Whether you surveyed teachers in the 1950’s or 60 years later you’d find that their biggest challenge is behavior. 

JANUS:  Yes, and it’s an area we often don’t provide much support.

Maag: I think that’s an area for our profession to say that we can provide direct teaching and collaborative consultation to any type of school personnel. Behavioral issues and the negative outcomes - the dropout rate, the contact with the juvenile system and all those things - that result from them are a large cost for our society when kids get out of school.

JANUS:  What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about or entering the field.

Magg: It’s an exciting time, a challenging time, a time of potentially positive changes in terms of behavior. I would say that kids with behavior problems are always going to be there. It’s kind of like death and taxes.  They will be there whether you want them there or not. 

I think that for someone coming into the field, stay focused. If you are coming into the field it’s because you like behavior. Presumably you have a strong ego because there is nothing that will humble you like being any type of teacher, let alone a teacher working with kids with emotional/behavioral disorders. Have a sense of humor. Be a lifelong learner and seek out more information. From my first job teaching kids with emotional behavior disorders, I found that in order to survive, let alone thrive, I had to find my own information, not because my program wasn’t adequate but you can’t cover everything that is needed. There are a lot of researchers out there that can help you feel grounded and that you can make a difference in the lives of kids that have had a very daunting life. 

*****

John Maag’s focus on the management of resistance and self-management skills continues to be valuable to teachers and parents. His unique perspective is helpful for those who struggle daily to meet the needs of challenging children. A video of his complete interview may be accessed at https://archive.org/details/Dr.JohnMaagSharesHisReflectionsOnTheField

Upcoming issues of Behavior Today will include excerpts of conversations held with additional leaders in the field who have shared their experiences and thoughts with the Janus Project.