Gary E. Schaffer

Implementing Universal Social-Emotional Programs is a step-by-step guide for educators and school-based mental health professionals seeking to effectively select, employ, and evaluate universal social-emotional programs using implementation science. With one out of five children having diagnosable mental health challenges and many more of our youth developing social-emotional concerns, today’s schools must be able to effectively plan and implement evidence-based programs that promote social-emotional learning and positive academic outcomes. This book accompanies practitioners and graduate students in teaching, school psychology, counseling, social work, education, and administration through each stage of implementation science, common programs and screeners, the purpose and selection process of implementation teams, and schools’ expectations for fidelity, timeline, and budget. Throughout, the authors provide graphic organizers, diagrams, activities, exercises, vignettes, checklists, templates, charts, and other interactive features for active engagement.

Implementing Universal Social-Emotional Programs is a step-by-step guide for educators and school-based mental health professionals seeking to effectively select, employ, and evaluate universal social-emotional programs using implementation science. With one out of five children having diagnosable mental health challenges and many more of our youth developing social-emotional concerns, today’s schools must be able to effectively plan and implement evidence-based programs that promote social-emotional learning and positive academic outcomes. This book accompanies practitioners and graduate students in teaching, school psychology, counseling, social work, education, and administration through each stage of implementation science, common programs and screeners, the purpose and selection process of implementation teams, and schools’ expectations for fidelity, timeline, and budget. Throughout, the authors provide graphic organizers, diagrams, activities, exercises, vignettes, checklists, templates, charts, and other interactive features for active engagement.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: A Practical Guide to Preventative Practice, by Gary Schaffer, makes it easy to decipher this important framework for delivering evidence-based interventions to improve students’ learning, behavior, and social-emotional outcomes. This text focuses on the common elements of the intervention service delivery models comprising Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to offer step-by-step guidance for each stage of the process. Covering MTSS from a "whole child" perspective, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support empowers current and future educators to set up learners for the greatest success in school and beyond. This book simplifies the MTSS model using an overall analogy of the four basic steps to building a house. We start with the foundation as the history of MTSS, the walls as the four main intervention service delivery models, the framework as common components that link all delivery models, and then the roof that represents MTSS as a whole. Diagrams, checklists and flowcharts accompany each step of the MTSS model to organize and summarize the information on each model. Case studies offer practical, in-depth examples of implementation strategies across models within MTSS. Unique sections on data-based decision making and infusing culturally responsive practices into RTI, SWPBS, Social-Emotional RTI, and Suicide Prevention and Intervention offer readers ways to better adapt and refine their implementation of MTSS. Through this text, readers will have a convenient resource that will save them time locating information on interventions, measures of universal screening, and progress monitoring unique to each intervention service delivery model within MTSS.