Improving Your Family Relations by Looking

Under the Roof, Rather than the Carpet

Thank you to everyone who attended Blueprints’ lecture, "Family Intervention Begins with a Systems Approach to Assessment and Analysis," presented at the Northwestern Association for Behavior Analysis Regional Conference in Spokane, WA.  Your support and your feedback on our service is very valuable.

The lecture, led by Holly Almon and Kate Laino, Clinical Services Director and Assistant Director of Blueprints, addressed an innovative way to solving problematic interactions between family members.  Rather than looking under the carpet, figuratively, where most hurt feelings and accusations from poor interactions accumulate, Kate and Holly suggested taking a step back and looking under the roof of the home. 

The Blueprints executives described how behavioral components such as family values, priorities, vision, parental practices, communication, and perspectives can regularly affect the ways in which family members interact among one another as well as with people in their communities.  Holly and Kate further explained that organizational components such as household space, storage, daily routines, and assignment of chores can affect the productivity and contribution of each family member.  

All of these components, along with the way they are executed and made to fit, make up the big picture of a family.  When these essential pieces are not managed effectively, family members experience undue stress, feelings of hopelessness, and dissatisfaction with the family experience.  In order to transform family interactions into happier, healthier experiences, members of the family need to learn a new way to manage these important components.  

The Blueprints Framework aids families through this transformation.  In a sense, Blueprints takes the roof off of a home so that the family might look under it to see the big picture: the way their family prioritizes tasks and events, uses parenting strategies, communicates, organizes furniture and materials, implements routines, finishes chores...  Analysis, measurement, and ultimately, the family’s effective management of these behavioral and organizational components follow as key features of the Blueprints Framework. 

To hear more from Holly about the Blueprints Framework, please join us November 4-6 at the Precision Teaching conference.  There, Holly Almon will present our symposium: “From Nonlinear Analysis to Systemic Intervention: Blueprints’ Application of the Constructional Approach to Help Families in Stress across Home and School Environments.”  We hope you can join us.

 

 

 

WCBC Releases 2010-2011 Conference Schedule

West Coast Behavioral Consultants (WCBC) released its 2010-2011 conference schedule today.  WCBC plans to send representatives from its divisions Blueprints and Optimal to seven professional conventions in the months ahead.  Representatives will present case studies, the Blueprints Family Systems Intervention, and Optimal’s Performance Improvement strategies in various symposia and workshops as they travel across the country.  The conference names, locations, and presenters are listed below.

Additional professional associations with which Blueprints’ professional behavior analyst practitioners hold membership can be found here.

Conference	Locale	Presenter(s)
Northwest Applied Behavior Analysis Conference October 8-9, 2010	Spokane, Washington	Holly Almon Kate Laino
Precision Teaching Conference November 4-6, 2010	Seattle, Washington	Holly Almon
Council on Autism Services Conference January 10-11, 2011	Las Vegas, Nevada	Shane Isley
CalABA Annual Convention February 17-19, 2011	San Francisco, California	Donnie Staff Holly Almon
Association for Positive Behavior Support Conference March 10-12, 2011	Denver, Colorado	Kate Laino Paul Rogers
British Columbia Association for Behavior Analysis Conference March 11-12, 2011	Vancouver, BC Canada	Shane Isley Donnie Staff Valori Berends
Bi-Annual Organizational Behavior Management Network Conference March 31-April 1, 2011	Tampa, Florida	Donnie Staff
Association for Behavior Analysis International Annual Convention May 27-31, 2011	Denver, Colorado	Holly Almon Kate Laino Paul Rogers Andrew Syvertsen Valori Berends

WCBC Expands to Canada

West Coast Behavioral Consultants (WCBC) is taking advantage of Canada’s strong economy by expanding services into the Vancouver area.  

“Vancouver is an innovative city.  It’s a great place to bring our progressive framework and best practices in behavior analytic services,” says Shane Isley, WCBC’s CEO and the Executive Director of Blueprints.

West Coast Behavioural Consultants-Canada began business in August.  Plans for the branch include the provision of vocational services for adolescents with autism and human performance technology for human service organizations. 

In addition to the new office, West Coast Behavioral Consultants houses the divisions Optimal and Blueprints.  WCBC focuses on a comprehensive and outcome-based approach to solving socially significant problems.  

Since its founding in 2007, WCBC-Blueprints has provided positive family interventions across the Puget Sound area.  As a result of services, three children removed from school placements due to serious problem behavior have been successfully reintegrated into the classroom environment.  Others have dramatically improved attendance records-some as much as fifty percent.

 

 

 

New Clinical Services Director

I am very pleased to announce the addition of Holly Almon to the Blueprints team. Holly joins us on May 3rd, 2010 as Director of Clinical Services.

Many of you may already know Holly, as she has been working with children and families in Washington State for the last seven years. She was most recently with the Organization for Research and Learning (formerly Fabrizio/Moors Consulting), in addition to managing her own private practice (Almon-Morris LLC) providing home and school-based behavioral consulting services to families with children with disabilities and behavioral disorders.

Holly is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and a Washington State Registered Counselor. She received her master's degree in behavior analysis from the Department of Behavior Analysis at the University of North Texas, specializing in the behavior analytic treatment of persons with autism. Her areas of research have focused on staff training procedures, precision teaching, program development, observation & measurement systems, and social & leisure skills for persons with disabilities. Her current areas of expertise include the development and programming of pragmatic language, the teaching of self-advocacy skills, designing instructional materials, programming for non-vocal students using speech generating devices, conducting functional assessments/analyses, and developing positive behavior support plans.

While Holly will lead our clinical services and work day-to-day with Blueprints' wonderful team of coaches and consultants, I will continue to actively support our staff and current clients through consultation.  Additionally, I will be focusing on evolving Blueprints' model, helping us gain improved client outcomes and standardizing our clinicians' jobs. I also plan to develop public materials that will be offered through our website, to make our approach accessible to more families. 

You will have an opportunity to meet Holly in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, I want to pass on a personal message from her, as part of this announcement: "I am thrilled to become a part of the Blueprints/West Coast Behavioral Consultants, Inc. team. I feel that my analytical, problem-solving, and leadership skills paired with my compassion for helping children and families will align nicely with the company's mission. I feel privileged to become part of an organization with such caring and highly skilled staff members, and look forward to maintaining and expanding your model of high-quality service delivery."

Please join me in welcoming Holly to our team. I am confident that Blueprints is excellent hands under her leadership, and that our clients will continue to receive the caring support and positive outcomes they have come to count on us for.

 

Shane Isley

Executive Director