"[Ripple Effects] helps students look at themselves, and give themselves what they actually need,"
Rose Gruendl, Director, District Police Department's Aggressors, Victims and Bystanders program

"It lets us identify early on things that we would otherwise have a hard time seeing - like sense of hopelessness - and intervene and try to turn these things around. It can be a whole different way of looking at a kid."
Kim Mazauskas, Resource Teacher, Safe Schools Institute, The School District of Palm Beach County

In today's schools, student behavior is a bigger challenge than ever before. Violent incidents make the news, but it's everyday bullying, disruptiveness, and defiance that are limiting school effectiveness. As the research piles up on what works -and doesn't- to change behavior, one thing is clear: to work, interventions need to be individualized. Yet coming up with effective interventions tailored to meet each student's needs, on the fly, is a daunting task.

In Fall 2006, The School District of Palm Beach County launched a program to make individualizing their interventions easier, using a computer-based behavior training application from Ripple Effects.
 
With Ripple Effects, "we believe we've finally found a strategy that really helps children redirect their behavior, and reflect on their behavior," says Ann Faraone, Director of Student Intervention Services for the District. "We've been trying to do this for years, and for the first time, I think we have something that can get us to that." Kim Mazauskas, a Resource Teacher with the District's Safe Schools Institute, agrees. "Adults in our district now have a tool to handle most situations, right at their fingertips."

Ripple Effects is a self-directed learning tool that gives students a way to identify the issues that are of concern to them, and then get training in the way they learn best, on the specific skills they most need. Reading independent and media-rich, the software uses peer voices, images, and stories to teach science-based strategies for changing behavior, and building personal strengths.

"It helps students look at themselves, and give themselves what they actually need," says Rose Gruendl, Director of the Aggressors, Victims and Bystanders (AVB) program, a nationally known anti-bullying and bias reduction initiative run through the District Police Department. Gruendl has chosen Ripple Effects to supplement her existing print AVB curriculum.

In AVB, all 6th grade students get training to proactively address bullying and bystander behavior. "Now, in 7th and 8th grade," explains Gruendl. "We're giving this to students so that they can ask themselves the question, 'How else can I grow? What do I need?' It's a way to build on the skills we're teaching everyone in 6th grade, in a way that addresses each individual students' needs and issues."

The technology does two things that are new: it makes the huge body of knowledge about what works to change behavior, easily available, and it does so in a way that empowers students themselves to be active participants in their own problem-solving.

In discipline settings, Kim Mazauskas finds that "getting on Ripple Effects helps students de-escalate quicker, and allows them to see it from another perspective, from a peer, which usually leaves them more open to adult intervention. It's a reflective tool, that paves the way to productive conversation with an adult."

The District, which is the eleventh largest in the nation, will leverage Ripple Effects to ensure everyone gets the same treatment in discipline settings. "It supports our School Discipline Matrix, in terms of applying consistent actions to address inappropriate behaviors," explains Mazauskas. "And right now, consistency is key."

Having the content "in the box" also keeps program delivery consistent, "so the level of skill and training of the person in charge-at Saturday school, say,- is less of a factor," says Ann Faraone. Mazauskas agrees. "Not all our adults have the skill set to redirect student behaviorŠ so this program assures that every student gets an effective intervention."

Beyond responding to behavior problems after they've happened, Mazauskas is excited about its potential to help intervene before problems occur. She is using Ripple Effects in elementary schools as part of her Helping Hands mentoring program. "It lets us identify early on things that we would otherwise have a hard time seeing - like sense of hopelessness - and intervene and try to turn these things around. It can be a whole different way of looking at a kid."

Faraone, Gruendl and Mazauskas recently presented Ripple Effects to the District's middle school principals. "They were awed by it," says Gruendl. "They see so many additional ways they can use it. "Last year," she continues, "I had to call each school to try to get them to schedule a training for AVB-it was a struggle. Now, they are calling me, asking me how soon I can come and train them on Ripple Effects. They can't wait to get it into their schools."