This article describes efforts to adapt an adolescent version of the Coping Power program, called Coping Power in the City, for use with high school students attending an urban school district with high concentrations of students exposed to community violence and challenges related to elevated tensions between youth and police. The goal of this…

The response patterns of youth who witness bullying have potential to influence future occurrence and persistence of bullying behaviors. Prevention efforts have included an increased focus on bystander interventions; however, the majority of adolescents rarely intervene in bullying situations. When they do, they often display of mixed pattern of…

Bullying is a major concern in schools, yet there has been limited research examining the ways in which students respond to frequent victimization by their peers. The current study explored whether there are discrete groups of children who display similar patterns of responses to frequent bullying. We also examined the associations between the…

More than 14,000 schools nationwide have been trained in School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS), which aims both to reduce behavior problems and to promote a positive school climate. However, there remains a need to understand the programs and services provided to children who are not responding adequately to the…

There is growing interest in gender differences in the experience of various forms of peer victimization; however, much of the work to date has used traditional variable-centered approaches by focusing on scales or individual forms of victimization in isolation. The current study explored whether there were discrete groups of adolescents who…

This study describes the process by which a statewide support system was developed in Maryland to promote high-quality implementation of a school-wide prevention model called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). PBIS (Sugai & Horner, 2006) aims to prevent disruptive behavior problems and promote a positive school climate…

Office discipline referral (ODR) data are increasingly used to monitor student behavior problems and the impact of interventions, but there has been limited research examining their validity. The current study examined the concordance of ODRs with teacher ratings of student behavior using data on 8,645 children in 335 classrooms at 21 elementary…

Bullying poses a threat to children's social-emotional functioning and their perceptions of school climate, yet few studies have examined different types of social-emotional and behavior problems presented by children involved in bullying, as a bully, victim, or bully/victim across multiple school levels. The current study used data from 24,345…

The responsibility of managing student behavior has become a heightened concern for general education teachers as a result of increased accountability for student gains. Although functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) are widely recommended for use in such situations, there are clear indications that this evidence-based practice is not occurring…

High fidelity implementation of school-wide PBIS has been linked with improvements in student and staff behavior, but less is known about which aspects of the model may be present in schools prior to training, and whether some features of PBIS are implemented faster than others. The present study examines the progression of school-wide PBIS…

Youth development approaches have grown in popularity, yet the appropriateness of these strategies for adolescents with serious behavior problems has rarely been addressed. Life-course research examining the onset and developmental course of problem behaviors suggests that youth with different patterns of behavior problems may not equally benefit…

Contemporary perspectives on positive youth development are considered in light of multidisciplinary life-course research regarding the development of serious behavior problems. Strategies are provided for applying the youth development perspective and life-course research to clinical interventions for court-involved youth. (Contains 1 table.)

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a universal, school-wide prevention strategy that is currently implemented in over 7,500 schools across the nation to reduce disruptive behavior problems through the application of behavioral, social learning, and organizational behavioral principles. PBIS aims to alter school environments…