Stepped Care Approach for Addressing Youth-Motivated School Refusal Behaviors

2026

The purpose of this project is to develop a manualized intervention approach to address student-motivated school refusal behaviors of students (ages 7-15) with and at risk for disabilities, that can be feasibly used in authentic school contexts and shows evidence of potential effectiveness. The intervention will integrate cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) strategies with functional behavior assessment (FBA), making it a tailored approach. Based on the function of school-refusal behavior, CBT strategies that best address the function will be selected and implemented. The intervention will be embedded within a stepped-care approach. A stepped-care approach is a more efficient, planful, and less costly method that yields positive outcomes for approximately 40% of students with low expenditures of resources. This reserves the more intensive intervention and resources for those students who do not respond to the first-line approach. School-based behavioral health educators (SBBHs; e.g., school psychologists, behavior analysts/interventionists, social workers, counselors, etc.) will be trained and coached by research staff to implement the intervention independently. It is anticipated that this project will result in a fully developed intervention that can be used with feasibility in school settings, implemented independently with fidelity by SBBHs, and show the promise of effectiveness in students attending school.

Developmental Disabilities

Performing Research or Evaluation

Quality Assurance

Students/Trainees (long or intermediate trainees), Children/Adolescents with Disabilities/SHCN

Disadvantaged Circumstances

Mulit-County

N/A