green tree partnership

Crisis De-escalation Techniques

This workshop introduces participants to the model of crisis de-escalation that Green Tree School has used successfully with students demonstrating severe behavioral disabilities. This prevention-oriented model employs a hierarchy of interventions to reduce tension and help students make positive choices that lead them out of crisis mode and into appropriate activities. Instructors model verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that enable teachers to connect with students when they are flooded with emotions that block the usual channels of communication. Techniques in post-crisis processing between teacher and student are also shared, along with ways to connect insights gained in post-crisis sessions with ongoing prevention practices. The Green Tree approach is a teaching-learning model that aims to develop skills that prevent future crises and to help both teachers and students better manage crises if they do arise.

Therapeutic physical restraint is one component of the intervention model used at Green Tree School. Our workshops can include instruction in physical restraint if participating schools have in place policies and procedures that assure appropriate oversight of all restraint-related practices. Although training in restraint techniques can be helpful, in the vast majority of crises in schools, de-escalation can be achieved safely and positively without restraint. Since implementing our current crisis de-escalation model, physical restraint interventions at Green Tree School have declined by over 90%.