Sara Curran
Behavior Consulting
Giving Families Direction
About Sara Curran
I am a licensed Behavior Consultant available to help you and your family address your child's problem behaviors and create a plan for success.
I have years of experience working with children in the school, home, and community settings, having taught preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school prior to starting work as a behavior consultant. I currently specialize in working with children with behavior needs between the ages of 2 and 12.
Please scroll down to find out more about behavior consulting, and to learn about the services I can provide.
A Bit About Behavior Consulting
If your child is showing challenging behaviors at home, at school, in camp or in the community,
you may need some guidance to help you find a solution and create an action plan.
What does a Behavior Consultant do?
Behavior consultants work on the premise that all behaviors serve a purpose; all behavior is communication. Even when behaviors are challenging or confusing, they can be understood as a result of careful observation, data collection, and analysis. Once behaviors are understood, they can be modified with the goal of giving the child a more effective way to get their needs met.
How does a Behavior Consultant help?
A behavior consultant (BC or BSC) uses behavioral analysis and therapy to figure out why a child is behaving in a specific, challenging way and to recommend interventions to change that behavior. The BSC works with the team to determine what happens immediately before and after the identified target behaviors. The BSC can then suggest appropriate interventions and monitor the level of success of those interventions, making changes as needed until the interventions are successful.
Why Behavior Consulting?
The goal is to give parents and other caretakers a positive set of tools to manage behaviors and improve outcomes. The child will experience consistency and success, thus reducing the challenging behaviors and generally make life happier for everyone!
Get in touch if you feel that behavior consulting can help you and your child/student.
Services Include:
Consultation via
Telehealth or Face to Face
I will engage with caregivers in-person or via telehealth consultation (Zoom) depending on your specific needs, schedule and comfort level. We will work to mimic the ideal consultation which takes place in the environment(s) in which the behaviors occur. My services focus on working directly with you, the caregivers, to create and teach interventions and strategies that fit with your family structure using BST (Behavior Skills Training) and the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. This involves defining the skills followed by demonstrating and practicing those skills and finally providing feedback and problem solving. We will determine priority needs and create an action plan to start making positive changes.
School Support
It may be necessary to address problem behaviors in the school and behavior consulting allows for a team approach. I will work with teachers and support staff through consultation meetings and in-person observations to gather behavioral data and then create and teach effective and appropriate strategies and support. The goal is to increase your child's success by decreasing challenging behaviors. It is important to create consistent strategies between home and school while maintaining a positive, functional relationship between those settings.
Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)
Data drives treatment, and with behavior consulting there are many ways to gather data on behavior both formally and informally. Using clear definitions of behaviors along with objective observations, data collection, team consultations, and caregiver interviews, an FBA can be a valuable tool in creating an effective behavior plan. In addition to providing formal baseline data (including: frequency, duration, maintaining antecedent and consequence factors and theories on the function of the behavior), every FBA report includes individually tailored and detailed intervention suggestions based on the results of the FBA. A team meeting closes out the assessment process to review the report and assist the team in planning next steps.
*in-person observations are necessary in order to complete an FBA
Navigating Services
There are an overwhelming number of support services available throughout the school district, the county, medicaid, or your insurance. It can be challenging to know which services are appropriate for you and where to start the process. I can guide you in learning about those services and creating a plan to access them. There is also a lot of value in involving children in community programs. But it is important to ensure that those programs can meet your child's needs while enabling them to engage with peers and grow. We will work together to find the best resources for your family!
School Workshops
Put my experience as a teacher and behavior consultant to work for your staff and students through teacher and staff direct training workshops. I will work with you to gather information on the current behavioral needs in your school's classrooms, including common triggers, priority behaviors, and response patterns. Using that information along with pre-workshop consultations, I will present three behavior strategy options tailored to the needs of your program. Using the format of presenting information followed by group discussion on how to functionally implement that information, I will give your staff a plan to move forward and make real, positive behavior changes! SCBC is also available for follow up meetings to monitor progress with any interventions put in place.
*This workshop can also be combined with an OT workshop if needed.