CPS is not an easy or fast way to deal with behaviour, but it is effective! While CPS will take time and effort, interventions that don’t work will always take even more time.

CPS specifically helps students solve problems so they can engage in the curriculum and, more significantly, so they can also develop skills to negotiate and advocate for their own learning needs.

Teachers using CPS report a higher sense of agency in their work, report feeling less stressed, and find coming up with their own personalised interventions easier.

A few key points:

• The CPS model is based on empathy and compassion. CPS is based on the assumption that students would all do well if they could.

• CPS recognises that students’ challenging behaviours are challenging for everyone!

Let’s start with your own beliefs about students and their behaviours.

• Why do you think that students have challenging behaviours?

• Why do you think that some students do not have challenging behaviours? Do you believe that students choose to exhibit challenging behaviours?

It is crucial to examine this belief because how you view behaviour guides how you interact with students exhibiting challenging behaviours. When the going gets tough, your personal beliefs ultimately determine how you deal with challenging behaviours.

Finally, CPS is about changing how we frame and view behaviour. Students with challenging behaviours lack essential thinking skills. This is true of students with ASD, ODD, PDA and FASd. However, this is also true of students with no diagnoses and students with any other challenging behaviour, big or small.

The difference between the belief that students do well if they can, and the belief that students do well if they want to is this:

When we believe that a student isn’t doing well because they don’t want to (which is often incorrect), then the primary role of the adult in the intervention is to make them want to do well. This is done by giving an incentive (rewards) when they are successful and punishments when they are not.

Alternatively, the assumption that if a student could do well, they would do well implies that the adult's role is to assist the student in developing the skills they are lacking in their ability to react to life's challenges adaptively.

But, how do we do this? First, assume that a student knows right from wrong and has all the motivation they need to do well. Next, figure out what skills the behaviour requires and what is standing in the student’s way—figuring out why a student’s behaviour is challenging is the first step in helping them react adaptively to challenges.