Special Interest Group Meeting II: Prevention in High Schools Dialogue: Leadership, Restorative Justice, PBIS, Student Assistance Programs, and Others

We invite researchers and practitioners to join this conversation about furthering prevention efforts in high schools. The aim of the dialogue is to share existing prevention programming, discuss what research needs exist, and identify how leadership affects the dissemination and buy-in of prevention programming.

High school populations have been largely ignored in the literature of evidence-based strategies. Our conversation will explore nationally recognized interventions from educational research which demonstrate a comprehensive approach to prevention in high schools. The challenge of working in high schools has been discussed in terms of the complexity of the organizational system and the critical role of school leadership in providing resources and support for prevention. Prevention approaches such as Restorative Justice, Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports (PBIS), Students Assistance Programs and others have been implemented and each approach has a different focus. For example, Restorative Justice (RJ) brings together all parties who have been impacted by an issue or behavior within a school to resolve the issues themselves. Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) is a framework that aims to create a school-wide system of evidence-based behavioral practices, with a targeted system of practices for youth who need additional behavioral support, and a tertiary system for the few youth who have the greatest needs for support. Student Assistance Programs (SAP) focus on building supports for student dealing with non-academic barriers to learning.

Through this dialogue, we hope to enhance practice with shared ideas and experiences and to stimulate research into prevention approaches with this neglected population.