9 Tips to Manage Multiple BIPs

If we are being honest, trying to keep track of multiple behavior intervention plans (BIPS) can be a nightmare. 

• Was Johnny the one working on raising his hand? Oh wait, that was Chris. 
• Did I remember to praise Sally for using her coping skills? Crap! Where is her break card?
• Oh, my gosh! I forgot to provide choices to Gabe during math - no wonder he had a meltdown. 
• I hope they aren't giving into Jack's meldown in art...I better go check...no wait...it's my planning time....I better check anyway...

Any of these thoughts ever run through your mind? How about when you are thinking them all at once!?!? The complexity of some BIPs can lead to feelings of extreme anxiety, especially if your role involves implementing more than one of them. The success of our interventions really depends on the fidelity of implementation, meaning how well staff are putting the procedures into action on a consistent basis. 

Here are some strategies we recommend that make managing and implementing multiple behavior plans much more doable.

1. Have a training plan - Your staff will begin to feel much more at ease with behavior plans if they have had training on them. First, decide who will be doing the training. Will it be the special education teacher? Will it be the school psychologist? Behavior specialist? Will you tag-team it? After you have decide who will be doing the training, set up a training schedule. We haven't seen any principals turn this down yet! After all, you are being proactive! Set up times when you can get the team together, even if it's for 10 minutes at a time. I know, I know, there is no time. But having no time cannot be an excuse. These are legal documents put in place to help your student's be successful and access their education; they need to be a priority. You may have to get creative, but creating the time to train up front will help you in the long run!
2. Identify a daily focus - These things can be long! I mean like 14 pages long. It is unrealistic to think anyone can implement the whole thing all at once on day so give yourself some grace. As a classroom team, pick one portion of the plan to start with and have this be the focus for the day. Run through it before the kids arrive so it's fresh in everyone's brains. One easy way to remember your focus is by writing the student's initials on a whiteboard with the daily focus next to it. This strategy is meant to help guide the implementation by getting good at implementing one or a few things at time. This does NOT mean you stop implementing that thing after the day is over. You have to keep doing it, but since you spent a whole day focusing on it, it shouldn't take as much energy and focus as the days go on - it should start to become a natural part of your routine. 
3. Involve your students - It can be a good practice to share parts of your student's behavior intervention plans with them. We don't recommend sharing ALL of it with them, as there are things they don't necessarily need to be privy to. Share the skills they are struggling with. Teach them their reinforcement system. Describe what will happen in the environment if they engage in the problem behavior vs. what staff and peers will do if they engage in the appropriate behavior - this will help alleviate any surprises and give them the predictability that many of our students need. 
4. Use visual supports - Visuals aren't just for those whose behavior we are trying to change. They can be extremely beneficial for the implementers as well! Many adults have a much easier time following steps that are represented with pictures or in a graphic, flow-chart style, rather than paragraphs upon paragraphs. It is important to account for the ability level of your staff, and visuals can help adults in the same way they help our students - they increase predictability, decrease anxiety, promote understanding and build confidence. 
5. Make them accessible - Hint: BIPs aren't meant to be kept in the dark depths of your filing cabinet, never to be looked at again after your meeting. Take them out and put them on clipboards or in a binder in the center of the room during the day. Treat them like a hot date that you really want to get to know. Learn their similarities and differences. Study the strategies - live with them, breath them in, sleep with them if you must. They more they become engrained in your brain, the less you will have to be running back and forth to the document throughout the day.
6. Create a checklist -It is always best practice to create what is known as a BIP checklist or fidelity checklist to go along with the actual BIP. It has two main purposes: 1) to ensure all staff are implementing the plan as written, and 2) to make changes to the BIP if a certain strategy isn't deemed as effective. Essentially, it is a condensed version of the behavior plan in a checklist or yes/no format. If you don't have one that goes along with your BIP, they can easily be created in a word document. 
7. Debrief and review - It can be easy to let things get away from you after a long, hard day. Whether there was a behavior incident or not, start making it a practice to sit down with your team (you can keep it short!) and quickly go through the BIP or the checklist (we recommend creating a checklist for this purpose because it will make this part go a lot faster). Talk about what parts were implemented well and what parts the team may have missed. Did you prompt when you were supposed to? Did you work on teaching coping skills that day? Did you remember to remain quiet during a crisis? Anything the team did well, keep it up, and do it again the next day. Pick one section that the team didn't yet implement or forgot, and have that be the focus for the next day. 
8. Ask questions - We tend to see staff avoid implementing parts of a behavior not because they don't want to, but because they don't fully understand how do. So, to that we say, ask questions! Bug us :) I had Amanda on speed dial when I first got to know her because I had so many questions! Shoot an email to your school psych or meet with your behavior specialist for 5 minutes to explain specific parts you or your staff have questions about. They are there to help, and it's part of their job! Avoiding getting clarification on the behavior plans just because you are embarrassed to ask questions is doing our students a disservice. I believe that asking questions to gain a better understanding of something makes you a better educator.
9. Celebrate small successes!  - Like we said earlier, these can be long, difficult to understand, and even more challenging to implement. When your team implements a specific strategy with success, celebrate it! Positivity can only help and will hopefully reinforce the effort of your staff.