A Strength-based Person-centered Proven Approach That Works!
The Key Connection© model was developed by Don Martel; LABA, LMHC, LMFT following decades of clinical experience working with individuals in the USA and overseas. In the late 1990’s, Don’s research during the Romanian orphanage crisis helped develop the foster care system in Romania. This experience helped him to understand the effects of trauma on the brain and shaped his thinking about behavior change practices over the past twenty-years. The Key Connection model is the result of those efforts and the discovery of a new way to treat challenging behavior based on a trauma-informed perspective creating a new pivot point of change.
The Key Connection approach combines proven person-centered treatments that build on the strengths of individual and families throughout the lifespan. Teaching the skills of flexibility, negotiation, and conflict resolution allow experienced ABA clinicians to combine social-skill development with self-management practices and provide individuals the tools needed to participate successfully in today’s rapidly changing world. NECA staff are trained in a wide range of family centric interventions aimed at providing the tools to support participants in taking control of their lives and reestablishing their place within their families. Using the latest scientific understanding of trauma-informed care, NECA staff utilize the NECA Backpack Self-Regulation Program.
The Key Connection Model is a strength-based, person-centered approach that combines Positive Behavior Support (PBS) with motivational interviewing techniques to support positive behavior change. The desire to be more independent, the hope that challenging behaviors will improve, and the expectation that coping skills will be available when needed, are genuine concerns caregivers struggle with every day. In our haste to expand and enhance the lives of those we support, we often fail to provide the tools necessary to achieve the goal. True independence requires that individuals have adequate self-management ability, understand what to do in real time, and demonstrate the skills on command.
The Five Key Components to the Key-Connections Model
● An assessment using evidenced-based clinical practices coupled with creative alternative analysis
● An evaluation of environmental, preferential, and motivational conditions
● The delivery of universal supports that facilitate positive reciprocal relationships
● The development of interventions that enhance personal assets, decrease problem behavior, and build social skills
● Onsite modeling & ongoing teaching opportunities
● Collaborative efforts designed to understand critical current and historical information for future planning
● A Data-driven view into the motives and functions that drive behavior
● Meaningful relationships, interesting activities, and naturally occurring skill-building exercises that create optimal learning environments
● Active engagement strategies that allow individuals to develop, practice, and generalize social skills in a safe and supportive environment
● Assessment & treatment that involves understanding, recognizing, and responding to the effects of all types of trauma
● Training on the physical, psychological, and emotional impact of trauma in everyday life
● The universal accommodation of trauma-informed interventions including Motivational Interviewing {MI}, Dialectical Behavior Therapy {DBT}, yoga & mindfulness
● Supportive language that enhances personal motivation for change by helping clarify and resolve ambivalence
● Interventions that avoid argumentative persuasion in favor of de-escalating techniques utilizing solid therapeutic relationships
● Each individual to discriminate intent, tone of voice, body language, and a host of other factors and distinguish contextual factors at play in real-time situations & settings
● “An individualized approach to planning that supports an individual to share his or her desires and goals, to consider different options for support, and to learn about the benefits and risks of each option” is the most effective teaching environment (Florida’s Positive Behavior Support Project; University of South Florida)
● Utilizing a process of implementing goals, preferences, and desires important to the individual maximizes opportunities for developing naturalistic interventions and positive, long-term outcomes
● The right people doing the right things at the right times provide an individual a unique opportunity to develop the appropriate support scaffolding for behavior change to occur
Steeped in the belief that everyone has the power to learn and change, we strive to deliver the most effective, creative, and evidence-based supports. A person-centered environment offers the opportunity for truly individualized care and our trauma-informed practices maximize buy-in while minimizing resistance. Our signature Key Connection© model supports positive behavior change and teaches lifelong self-management skills.
Changing how we think about changing behavior is critical to changing others behavior. Unless and until we are committed to addressing behavior problems as skill deficits and viewing them as teaching opportunities, we will continue to respond in overly punitive fashion. Engaging supports like family, friend’s, and neighbors, we establish the family at the core of the clinical team. Our Integrated Clinical Support is quite literally “wrapped” around the individual and their family.
The Key Connections model is the culmination of more than thirty-five years of clinical research and practice. We provide the framework necessary for behavior change.
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