In my previous blog I described and gave therapists and teachers my FAB Strategies form for developing individualized curriculum of strategies to help children and adolescents with complex behavioral challenges FAB Resources In this blog I describe and offer my free FAB Strategies template for therapists and teachers to share ideas from their student’s individualized FAB Strategies form with the family and other professionals.
The FAB Strategies template enables therapists and teachers to share specific FAB Strategies with parents for home programs and use and other professionals. Home and classroom teacher strategies are most helpful when embedded in the regular school routine (e.g., a brief mindfulness strategy done with the whole class that is practiced in individual therapy with the student, consistently done before language arts). I give home and classroom program strategies one or two at a time, beginning with those I believe will be most initially effective. I keep a copy and if the parent or teacher finds the initial strategies useful I add more. When showing parents and teachers home program strategies it is best to demonstrate the strategies with the student then have the parent and teacher practice. I never give strategies to parents or other professionals to try until I have used them repeatedly, and am confident they will improve the student’s behavior. I don’t want to give the message that “my time is more important than yours”.
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In addition to developing home programs the FAB Strategies Template enables therapists and teachers to quickly share strategies they have successfully implemented with other professionals. For example, when a student is discharged home from our adolescent psychiatric hospital I list a few of the most helpful strategies from each section and send them to the child’s new outpatient therapists and school staff. The example below shows how I used the template to help the new therapists and school staff receiving a girl with Autism Spectrum and Anxiety Disorder. An important decision is which and how many strategies to share. I try to include strategies that will be most affective, particularly when first communicating with new teachers and therapists.
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The template lists all of the FAB Strategies, and the therapist eliminates the strategies they did not use so a list of only the most relevant strategies remain. I also include my name and work e-mail so staff and parents can notify me if they are unsure of the strategies. With parental permission, copies of the template can be e-mailed to the student’s new therapists and teachers so they can benefit from the things I learned from assessing and working with the student. Although it is copyrighted I give my permission to therapists and teachers to use the template to help their clients. I hope it is useful. All of the strategies are described on my website and with an index in my FAB Strategies book FAB Book on Sale from Amazon
