
Evaluating the Zones of Regulation: SSWN Open Access 2020

Editor’s Note: With this article, we start an exciting new series here at SSWN, where we’ll share the articles from the just-published open-access International Journal of School Social Work (published by SSWAA and where I serve as editor-in-cheif) with SSWN readers and to invite authors and practitioners to interact with this original research here and over at our SSWNetwork platform. The first article is one of the first peer-reviewed empirical studies of an intervention that will be very familiar to SSW, the Zones of Regulation. In this paper, Dr. Stephanie Ochocki and her team raise significant questions about the effectiveness of this intervention and call for additional research on how best to implement it within MTSS structures. They write:
“School social workers utilized twelve selected lessons from the cognitive-behaviorally oriented Zones of Regulation® curriculum sequence for a six-week Secondary/Tier 2 group intervention. Implementation of the Zones of Regulation® curriculum did not result in statistically significant decreases in students’ disruptive behavior or improve their self-control. More tailored efforts to explore the social validity and effectiveness of the Zones® within MTSS school structures is warranted given the widespread use of the curriculum by school social workers and other specialized instructional support personnel.”
We invite you to join us over at SSWNetwork where we’ll be discussing this article through the rest of 2020, along with the other articles from the Volume 5, Issue 2 of the journal.
EVALUATING-THE-ZONES®