Collaborative Curiosity and The Unstuck Protocol
Whenever we perceive something as inaccurate, unexpected, or unjust, we get stuck. We freeze, flee, or fight – sometimes a little, other times, a lot. Learn how to help prevent that first sign of uncertainty from becoming a problem that needs solving. Being stuck is not a problem; it’s an opportunity. It’s an in-the-moment chance to resolve our initial perception and prevent a glitch from growing into a cycle of bigger and bigger problems – a practice for addressing stress before it becomes distress.
If you have time to correct or scold, you have time to be curious and ask, "what do you need?" Collaborative Curiosity is a key to preventing escalation, establishing trust, empowering self advocacy, and building a path to meaningful inclusion.
This transformative approach to inclusion empowers child-first, whole-school, whole-team collaboration. Collaborative Curiosity pushes beyond the WHY we need inclusive learning environments and proactive management tools and provides a novel, no-cost functional practice for HOW TO make inclusion less stressful and more seamless.
K-12+ educators, administrators, support staff, related service providers, parents and students will learn how to: understand the functions of individual cognitive profiles; the respond to a raised eyebrow; think about maladaptive behavior as ineffective communication; reduce the need for discipline; increase the effectiveness of evidence-based methodologies; translate the foreign language of evaluations; and combine information to create holistic and integrated IEPs that maximize independent generalization.
Collaborative Curiosity offers a reimagined approach to understanding the interconnected functions of cognitive domains, executive functioning, and sensory integration processing. Attendees will gain fresh understanding of the learning process, upgraded tools for interpreting and amalgamating information, ways to place and keep the student at the helm, and how to apply the Unstuck Protocol, a practice for preventing escalation and empowering meaningful inclusion. We’ll share no-cost, practices and collaborative strategies for developing holistic, result-oriented IEPs.
If you are reading this, you already know that our disability service systems provide woefully inadequate toolboxes combined with built-in inefficiencies that inhibit inclusion and stymie chances for successful outcomes. The special education process dissects the student into different skill deficit areas, then siloes services to address those separate needs and leaves the student out of the process. Evaluations, even if they are written in lay language, often aren’t understood by themselves or in the context of all evaluations. The process functions like the six blind men and the elephant, where no one is collaborating, and no one is listening to the elephant. Collaborative Curiosity & the Unstuck Protocol offers schools, agencies, institutions and families a path to:
- expand cultural expectations and practice from trauma-sensitive to neuroceptive-receptive (respond to raised eyebrows)
- prevent escalation and circumvent the need to correct, shame, blame, discipline, seclude or restrain
- approach maladaptive and unexpected behavior as ineffective communication;
- develop and implement support and service programs to, for, and with the child (rather than the service providers)
- improve efficacy of evidence-based interventions
When adults respond to a child’s ineffective communication instead of their maladaptive behavior, meaningful inclusion and independent skill building become possible. This reimagined approach provides innovative, no-cost, functional, effective and collaborative strategies for developing holistic, integrated, successful-results-oriented IEPs and seamlessly inclusive service support plans.
