Implementing behavioral interventions and utilizing data collection tools are necessary skills for effective school social work practice. Functional assessments, behavior intervention plans, IEP goals, and multi-tiered systems of support all rely heavily on this skill set.

However, some of us may not have received adequate preparation of these skills through our training. We want to use best practices, but we may not know where to look. Sometimes for convenience and other times out of desperation we turn to Teachers-Pay-Teachers or Pinterest for behavior intervention ideas or data collection forms. When using those sites it’s often difficult to ascertain whether those tools or resources have any empirical support.

To be fair, there are a lot of great resources posted on sites like Pinterest, but there are probably just as many poor ones. With this in mind, we have compiled a short list of websites where you can find sound behavioral interventions and data collection tools.

The Top 5 Websites for Behavioral Intervention and Data Collection Tools

As you visit these sites you’ll notice some overlap in the strategies and tools offered. However, each website has strengths that make it uniquely valuable. We encourage you to explore each of them and hope you find this list useful to your practice.

Let us know if there are other websites you feel deserve a mention by leaving a comment. We love hearing about different resources that school social workers find useful.

1. Behavior Doctor

Behavior Doctor Seminars provides training and educational materials to help professionals and educators increase their capacity to carry out behavioral interventions.

While I can’t speak to the professional development offerings, I can tell you the website offers a large collection of useful behavior intervention resources and data collection tools that are free to download.

My favorite tool on the site is the FBA Data Collection tool. It allows you quickly and easily create customized data collection forms. It will then analyze the data and generate reports which assist in determining the function of the behavior! You can find the FBA Tool on the Materials page under Data Collection Tools.

*Please note there are two versions of the FBA Tool on the website. Chose the correct file based on your version of Excel.

2. Intervention Central

Intervention Central provides social workers and teachers with free resources to help struggling learners and implement Response to Intervention (now MTSS). The website features tools and resources for both academic and behavior interventions.

Navigating the website is fairly easy. Interventions and strategies are organized by problem areas, but the categories are broadly defined, such as “Motivation” and “Challenging Students”.

Intervention Central provides really great research-based classroom management strategies that are useful when consulting with a classroom teacher or developing a behavior intervention plan. Each strategy offers a rationale as well as a highly detailed, step-by-step implementation guide.

The website also offers some notable web applications such as a behavior rating scale report card maker, a behavior intervention planner, and a behavior and intervention data chart maker. Social workers familiar with making forms and charts using Google Docs or Microsoft Office may find the web applications a bit clunky and time-consuming, however they are great for those less comfortable using spreadsheet applications.

3. PBIS.org

The Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS.org) is established by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). The PBIS.org website offers a variety of data collection tools, interventions, and forms for each tier of intervention.

What makes the website standout are the variety of resources provided at each tier, such as tools, presentations, video examples, publications and training materials. School social workers involved in the implementation and coordination of multi-tiered systems of support will find the Evaluation Tools very useful.

The large volume of content can make it difficult to find the desired information. You will find most of the tools and resources under the School tab.

4. National Center on Intensive Intervention

The National Center on Intensive Interventions (NCII) is housed at the American Institutes for Research, and works in conjunction with many of our nation’s most distinguished data-based individualization (DBI) experts. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).

Three sections of the website are especially valuable to school social workers:

Tool Charts

The Behavioral Progress Monitoring and Behavioral Intervention tool charts present information about behavioral intervention programs and progress monitoring tools. The tool charts provide ratings of programs and instruments based on reviews of studies.

Data Meeting Tools

NCII offers data meeting protocols to aid problem solving teams in running effective meetings. The documents are split into three sections: pre-meeting, initial meeting, and progress monitoring meetings. Resources include sample agendas, facilitator guides, and note-taking templates.

Behavioral Strategies

The behavioral strategies and sample resources are for classroom teachers to use with students who may need more behavioral supports. The strategies are evidence-based and great to use when consulting with teachers on managing challenging student behaviors within the classroom.

5. PBIS World

PBIS World has long been a favorite of mine. Besides having been created by a school social worker (Awesome!), PBIS World is designed with the practitioner in mind.

Interventions and data collection tools are organized by both problem behavior and tier level. The website provides an interactive feel as it walks you through the progression of interventions through each tier.

After choosing a problem behavior you will be given a list of behavior strategies. Each strategy outlines the rationale as well as when and how to carry out the intervention. Some interventions contain a list of additional resources to support implementation.

Conclusion

There are a lot of behavioral intervention and data collection tools available on the web. Relying on websites like Pinterest or TpT can make it difficult to determine if the intervention or tool has any empirical support. The websites in this article offer many evidence-based behavioral interventions and sound data tools. We hope you find them useful to your practice.

Is there a really great site that we missed? Leave a comment and let us know.