Behavioral Support When You Need It
As a service provider, GoodLife Innovations offers robust, cutting-edge behavioral services for adults with disabilities in the state of Kansas. We have Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) on staff who provide assessments, behavioral case-management, and ongoing training and support for our staff, our residents, and their guardians.
What do Behavioral Services Look Like at GoodLife?
Behavioral Case Management
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Behavioral Case Management is available to everyone on a rolling admissions process based on need including residents at GoodLife, day services recipients, those who have an Internal Case Manager, and those who have an External Case Manager.
Even if you don’t have ongoing Case Management - you still have access to Ph.D-level behavior analysts, should support needs arise.
Tiered-Approach to Services
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On a quarterly basis (often more frequently) our behavioral services team assesses the entire company to determine who has the most support needs at that time. Behavioral support is then tiered based on need ranging from ongoing services from a BCBA to support from a GoodLife manager trained in basic best-practice services.
Although we cannot always guarantee applicants receive ongoing support from a BCBA, GoodLife provides ongoing training and oversight to all employees on the implementation of best-practice, evidenced-based, behavior-analytic procedures to ensure high-quality services across the organization.
Providing Behavioral Care
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Our behavioral services teams conduct functional behavior assessments, analyze data, and make ongoing modifications to plans (such as: behavior support plans, mental health support plans, service provision plans) to ensure high-quality, function-based, supports are in place to all individuals GoodLife serves.
They work on interdisciplinary teams with our nursing staff to make sure we are providing a continuous and consistent care for the individual needs of every served.
Behavioral Services that everyone gets at GoodLife:
1) A Behavior Analyst is part of the resident's core team
2) Our BCBAs have ongoing contact, one-to-one with guardians
3) Guardians have access to training and support and are included in all decision-making processes
If a person served has ongoing BCBA Support:
1) Behavior support is overseen by our director of behavioral services (e.g., all plans are peer reviewed by the director and the behavioral services team)
2) Enhanced behavioral support, or consultation, from the behavioral services team and director are available on an as needed basis
3) Guardians have access to training and support and are included in all decision-making processes
4) If an individual is on a BCBA caseload, you can also expect ongoing contact with that BCBA and one-to-one meetings and updates
What Sets Us Apart
GoodLife’s unique partnership with the University of Kansas Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences allows us to research and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of our services. We develop and test new models of care so that we are constantly improving the health and well-being of the individuals we serve.
Evidence-Based Training
Additionally, our Ph.D-level Behavior Analysts (we have several who work with GoodLife full-time or Consult regularly) lead staff BCBAs and provide training for our managers, Home Coaches, Targeted Case Managers, and Directors on best-practice, evidence-based processes, and protocols. In turn, our staff BCBAs train our team leaders and their in-home staff on best practices for specific individuals and behaviors in what’s known as a Pyramidal Training Structure.
Healthy Behavioral Practices
GoodLife’s “Healthy Behavioral Practices” is an intervention based on the research of assessment and treatment of problem behavior. We conducted the research here at GoodLife, 5 years ago, and followed it up with the doctoral dissertation of our Director of Behavioral & Children’s Services, Nicole Kanaman.
The following Healthy Behavioral Practices are our company standard.
Positive Interaction Style
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Provide individuals with access to attention (like conversation, descriptive praise, expressions of care) on a frequent (approximately once every 5 min) basis.
High Engagement in Activities
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Ensure individuals have frequent access to highly preferred, and engaging, items/activities throughout the day and prompt engagement in various settings.
Effective and Clear Instructions
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Provide instructions in a manner that encourages compliance and reduces the resistance to an instruction, decreasing challenging behavior in demand contexts.
Best Practice Responses to Challenging Behaviors
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Practice procedures that minimize attention to problem behaviors, and redirect the individual such that future occurrences of the challenging behavior are less likely to occur.
Anticipating Needs
How Healthy Behavioral Practices Help
We train staff to use these Healthy Behavioral Practices with every single person to increase their quality of life and decrease the probability of problem behavior by meeting needs before they happen.
This intervention is:
• Company Standard: We train all new staff on our healthy behavioral practices when they start at GoodLife
• Subject to Continuous Improvement: We conduct ongoing monitoring and feedback on our healthy behavioral practices to maintain high involvement across every single home and program
Research at GoodLife
Our long-standing relationship with KU Department of Applied Behavioral Analysis is one of the very first of its kind. Together, we are continually conducting innovative research on adult services.
At GoodLife, we are always making sure that the services we provide are evidence-based and cutting-edge. Through our partnership with KU, we constantly evaluate the efficacy of our models and, we’re finding that these new models of care are working so well that we are actively disseminating them to other service providers across the nation.
We conduct this research at GoodLife to:
1) Make sure our models work effectively to improve the quality of our services
2) Make sure we can share them with other service providers to enhance the lives of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities across the nation
Parents/Guardians
Are you a parent/guardian interested in receiving more information about GoodLife’s Behavioral Services?
If you have additional questions, contact:
Nichole Reiske, Director of Admissions
nicholereiske@mygoodlife.org
