Unmet Needs & Needs-Based Interventions

Hello.
Our Quick wins for school counselor series is coming to an end, but we’ve got one last training for you on unmet needs and needs-based behavior interventions. Because you know, in grad school, we all talked a little bit about motivation and theories of change and our counseling theories class, maybe about some models of consultation with teachers, but I know I was not prepared to function as a behavior specialist, and yet, that was very much a part of my job.
And as an elementary counselor, I bet it’s a significant part of your job as well.

Quick PSA, if this is the only video in this whole series that you’ve picked to watch and you’re curious about who this presenter is, just hit pause and read.

Now students are of course unique humans and while there’s definitely some psychological or behavioral principles that might apply to almost everyone, behavior intervention is not one size fits all. Kids don’t all misbehave for the same reason, and they don’t all need the same intervention. So with that in mind, there are 3 lenses that I have found really useful when supporting students’ sticky behavior troubles:

Competing motivations and positive reinforcement
Lagging skills and skills-based interventions
Unmet needs and needs-based interventions

This last lens, all about human needs, is what this training is all about because it’s the lens that I think we are least exposed to, or that we have the least experience with. And all humans, adults and kids alike, have essential needs. Different psychological theorists label them differently, but they’re all largely describing the same things. And when our needs aren’t being met, our behavior changes. We might try to get our needs met in really unhelpful or harmful ways, or we might withdraw in some way. Some of the students that you serve, who are struggling to meet their school expectations, it’s because their needs aren’t being met.

I stumbled across this quote recently from a presentation in the evidence-based school counseling conference several years ago that really struck a chord with me and I think it’s a perfect way to think about this. “Often adults attempt to match interventions to goals instead of matching interventions to need. Goals are adult driven, interventions are student driven.”
How great is that right? Our interventions should be matching our students’ needs and not what our goals as adults are. This of course can and should apply to all of our behavior interventions, but it’s extra applicable here.

These are the basic human and student needs I tend to operate off of:

-be physically and emotionally safe

-physically and emotionally regulated

-to be connected to and valued by others

-to experience fun, humor, playfulness, and learning,

-and to have control over our lives and know that we are capable.

The reason why we consider these students’ needs is that we believe that if the school team can help students get their needs met in safe and appropriate ways, they will be better able to meet the behavioral expectations of the school.

Today we’re gonna focus specifically on the regulation, connection and control needs because safety and fun, those are very different kinds of interventions and really more about teacher training and what the teacher is doing in the classroom.

With these ideas and interventions though, it is extraordinarily important for the team, teachers, admin, caregivers to understand that these interventions are not about rewards and reinforcement.

They are about need.

And that means that these interventions should not be contingent on a student’s good behavior. It’s not like, oh, they have a good day, so they get this thing and these interventions also shouldn’t be removed if they get it as a bad day, barring some like really specific and extreme circumstances.

And one need that I bet is probably already on your radar is attention and connection, right?
All students, all humans need to feel connected to others to have safe and stable relationships.
We all want to feel valued and validated, and when we’re talking about this need with kids, we’re talking about them needing connection from peers, from school adults, and from home adults. Some students might not feel connected or valued enough, which can lead to some attention seeking behaviors and I’m not saying that is a bad thing.

I don’t think attention seeking behavior is a bad thing.

It means that they have an unmet need that we can try and support, or you might have students who engage in behaviors that don’t have a really obvious need behind them. The behaviors aren’t screaming, I need connection, but we know that they’re experiencing a disruption and their connections in life, and they might need a relational intervention.

Some clues that a student might be in need and some additional attention and connection, meltdowns, attitude shutdown, talking back, all that kind of thing when the teacher is giving attention to someone else, usually another classmate. Constantly trying to make others laugh, when misbehavior continues to occur or even gets worse after they’ve been reprimanded or redirected, occasionally this looks like intentionally messing up partner group work or this might be that kiddo who really seems to be uncomfortable whenever they’re alone and they are constantly seeking out you or their teacher or their peers. Now something just like a little tricky about this need is that some Pre-adolescence, our tweens, which sometimes are our biggest kids in our elementary schools, are starting that like precariously balanced teeter totter of Please don’t look at me, leave me alone, and I want to be seen. And so sometimes they behave in ways that indicate they want less attention, but they’re still really needing good connection. They’re just pickier the type of attention and connection that they need.

Here’s one example of how this might present:
Malachi doesn’t seem to have a consistent friend or friend group and blurts out whenever his teacher is working with another student or small group. Often other students laugh. In this example, the context and the behavior are clues that there might be a relational need.

Here’s another:
Cassidy is often openly defying directions and watches to see what happens. She has several siblings, including one with a disability. Her parents are incredibly loving but spread thin. In this example, the behavior may or may not be attention specific, but there is an environmental clue that there might be an attention or connection need.

Now you know when you learned about the DSM in grad school or when you watch medical shows as I very much love, there are “rule outs” to diagnosis, right? Kind of red herrings to look out for and the same can be true for unmet needs. So in a “rule out” for attention and connection, as to make sure that the student isn’t engaging in these types of behaviors because they are wanting to either distract from academic struggles that they’re having, or 2, if they’re engaging in those behaviors, not because they’re trying to connect to others in some way, but because they’re wanting to feel a greater sense of their own self-confidence, which we’ll talk about more later.

But if you’ve ruled those out.

The needs-based intervention here of course is then to provide the student with additional attention or connection and one relational intervention that is really strong is called the 2 by 10. It is for students who don’t yet have strong positive relationships with one or more of their teachers, or who always seem to be seeking connection from their teachers through mostly negative ways. In 2 by 10, the teacher or teacher’s plural will spend 2 minutes. Every day for 10 consecutive school days talking to the target student about whatever the target student wants to talk about finding a common interest or disinterest, asking questions, hopefully not too many questions. The key is really just that it’s 10 consecutive days and the topic is our topics are the students choosing or the conversations really led by the student. Occasionally 2 minutes might really feel like a long time and so teachers might have to work up to that or really spread that throughout the day.

There’s also some really strong research, well, I’ll say mediumly strong research to back up this intervention and it’s a cool bonus. One study found that the entire class’s behavior actually improved when the teacher used the 2 by 10 strategy with some of the trickiest students.

Another relational intervention is to schedule one or more intentional connection points into a student’s day. This could look like them having a morning buddy where they’re spending the 1st 3 minutes of each day with a peer or a school grown up to sort of fill up their connection cup first thing, or it could look like the teacher having a couple of points during their day where they pause and connect with the child. It could just be a high five or asking them a question. It seems so simple, and I know that it almost seems like silly to formally write that up or to schedule it, but we know how hectic a classroom can get and how easily things can be forgotten during the day. So this really can be formalized intervention.

All right, moving on, another unmet need for us to talk about is regulation, right? When our mental and physical states are regulated, our brains and bodies are calm, or they are at the right energy level to match the task we’re about to tackle, we’re alert, we’re essentially ready to do our jobs with students that means ready to learn or ready to play or ready to socialize depending on the timing of the school day.

Regulation is tied to physical sensations, physical movement, and our emotions.
When someone’s brain or body can’t learn or can’t, isn’t calm and alert, they can’t learn, they can’t reason so much. And self-regulation is, of course, when someone can identify when they are disregulated and then choose to take action to become regulated again.

Some clues that one of your students might have an unmet regulation need, difficulty staying in their assigned area, trouble transitioning, out of proportion emotional reactions or behaviors that seem really reflexive or automatic, a real slipping situation. The rule out here is that some kiddos might act physically in ways that look like dysregulation, but it’s actually work avoidance, wandering around the room or singing. And then there are some students who, when they get really emotionally disregulated, kids and adults respond in ways that meet some other need the student has, and so they continue to have these really big emotional reactions. For example, say you have a student named Janie, and whenever Janie starts to raise her voice when she gets angry, the other students move away from her, and then Jamie feels a little sense of power and control, and she was needing to feel a little bit more power and control. So then she intensifies her anger response.

In those situations, regulation might not be the need, power and control might be.

Now I imagine you have many, many, many, many students this applies to and now I’m not going to give you any character examples because I think you are quite literally envisioning many of these students in your brain right now, but it’s still important for me to make sure that I include this mention because, I think even though we talk a lot about regulation, I think that sometimes teachers and parents and admins sometimes underestimate that and I also think we talk a lot about things in terms of self regulation, about being able to regulate yourself and so of course we can but we should be explicitly teaching regulation skills.

They could also be lagging skills for kids, but a lot of our students with an unmet regulation need, they need more support. They need scaffolding in the classroom, they’re not able to just learn and apply a regulation skill.

This could look like access to sensory tools. So, one regulation-based intervention that I’ve had really successful personally are the use of chair bands and seat discs. I think those are really great. One year I implemented them, as like a class-wide targeted intervention in a couple of homerooms and had excellent results. I think too oftentimes I used to hear about sensory tools as being really specific for students who were neurodiverse in some way. They are if they had ADHD or some other sort of like sensory or stimulation specific concern, but I’ve actually found that a lot of these sort of interventions really support anxious students as well. There’s a lot of other sensory or movement-based interventions that you might use weighted stuffies, heavy work, knotted straws, if you have them. Occupational therapists that visit your school occasionally can be really great for consulting with on this. And then of course I believe deeply, deeply in the power of all classrooms and other spaces in the school, having calm corners as an emotional regulation needs-based support, but I think y’all know quite a bit about them by now. If not, email me, let’s chat.

Another emotional regulation needs-based intervention is breaks or breaks sticks. So that’s for students who struggle with working for long periods of time, and students who, maybe get really frustrated or maybe even elope. These breaks can be proactive, so they are scheduled into a student’s day at either set time intervals or potentially right before parts of the day where they’re most likely to get deregulated. They also can be used reactively and that would often be where a student is given sticks or passes of some sort to use when they identify themselves that they are needing a break and a little bonus to using them reactively in that way is that that can also increase a student’s sense of self competence because they’re in charge and they’re also seeing some success with taking a step towards becoming regulated, right? Of course, when you’re setting it up, you will want to really clearly define what a break looks like. Is it within the classroom or is it in a certain other designated space? You might also think about the number of times the student is currently having, you know, what you could call an outburst, during the day, add one more to that and then use that as the number of breaks that you start off with and then slowly wean down.

And last, in terms of regulation strategies, I really recommend providing what I just call an I need communication board to students and teachers. It’s really just a simple poster or card for students to communicate their needs, maybe communicate their feelings as well, and they get to identify without speaking what. Their need is usually given a set of predetermined options it really takes the pressure off of them especially for students who having a one on one conversation feels really daunting or really stressful for them when they’re escalated. They’re also really helpful for students who when they get really upset in the moment are just kind of shut down or who in the moment are so upset like their prefrontal cortex can’t even help them to really come up with or generate ideas for what they need and so having visuals in front of them to choose from helps them.

OK, and the third and final human need that we might need to address through behavior interventions is around power control and competence. We all need to feel like we have choices and are in control and parts of our lives. Children have the same need, but they have far less actual control over things in schools than adults do. Relatedly, we also need opportunities to feel successful.

And so this might be an unmet need for students if they feel incompetent, if they struggle with a lot of things, if they have that thought of like I just can’t do anything right, or their need for power and control might be environmentally related if there are some new big changes in their lives that are outside of their control.This unmet need could look like doing something different than what the teacher directed them to do, arguing over little things, work refusal that is totally unrelated to their ability to do the work, or the sweet babies who are constantly asking to help you or volunteering to do things even when it wouldn’t actually be helpful at all for them to do it.

And here’s one example of how this might present.

James seems bossy with everyone, telling classmates who to play with, telling his teacher what to do differently, etc.
He also has a my way or the highway attitude.
This example shows the unmet need presenting itself through the child’s specific behaviors.
Annabella has a new stepparent that is stricter, has more rules.
At school whenever things get a little tricky, she chooses to do something she enjoys like reading her graphic novel instead of her work.
This examples showing both behavior and environmental clues.

The “rule out” for this unmet need, kind of the opposite of the “rule out” for regulation.
A lot of misbehavior can occur when a child doesn’t get their way or things aren’t going how they want, right? Oftentimes misbehavior occurs in those situations.Sometimes it’s more because of an unmet need for control and power and competence, and sometimes it’s more due to struggles with self regulating.

And then there’s also some overlap here, right?

Because, if I find myself in a situation where someone else is trying to exert control over me, I’m going to be upset.So this rule out is sort of a both and because a student might need some proactive support to prevent misbehavior through a control or competence intervention, and then they might also need some scaffolding or skill building with emotional regulation.

The first intervention here is a classroom job or school job or a job for another grown up in the building, any of the above. Having a job gives students a sense of power and control. It’s something that they get to be in charge of and that they, hopefully know makes a difference in some way. It also gives them the opportunity to feel competent, to feel capable of something.
And then often there’s some bonuses that can be involved in this intervention. First, a lot of the times, a school or classroom job involves connection with someone else, and second, it usually gives it gives students a responsibility over a task that is usually a little bit more preferred of a task or responsibility than what is being asked of them otherwise.
And so there’s this idea, it makes a lot of sense to me andI hope it makes sense to you too that when we can experience success with being responsible and more enjoyable ways, that transfers into our ability and motivation to be more responsible and less preferred ways.
There are so many different jobs that you might come up with for a student to have, but what I will say is one of the most important things to keep in mind when you’re picking one is that it should be something that the student is able to perform at least twice a week, ideally daily for younger students.

if it’s just weekly it won’t be a high enough dose, so to speak, of the intervention same language with groups.

And then another intervention for this unmet need is something that I call expert time, and it’s specifically for students who don’t feel great about their abilities or who are lacking in self-esteem or self-confidence. Here’s how it works:

The student or the student and teacher together identify something that the student feels like they are experts at or that they’re very good at.
And then for 3 to 5 minutes each day, the student gets to engage in that activity.
An alternative to this would be, allowing the students to teach the class about something that they know. Expert time is an intervention. It fills a student’s competence cup, right? It gives them this positive experience each day of being successful and capable and competent and confident so that throughout the remainder of the day when other situations that they feel less of an expert at come up, they’re less impacted by that.