Life Space Crisis Intervention Essay

What is Life Space Crisis Intervention? Life Space Crisis Intervention or LSCI is an advanced, interactive therapeutic strategy for turning crisis situations into learning opportunities for children and youth with chronic patterns of self-defeating behaviors (“What is LSCI?” n.d.). It is a way for the teacher or professional to connect with the child in a crisis. It serves as a strategy to have the child talk through their situation and create a valuable learning experience for them to be able to try to solve their problem and achieve a productive goal. It is an interview process that allows the student to participate in metacognition to see that he or she has self-defeating pattern and how it effects the people around them whom may have done nothing wrong (Fecser & Long, 1998).

The process of Life Space Crisis Intervention has six different stages
that the child must be an active participant in, in order to completely change their behavior. The six stages of LSCI have two phases including the diagnostic and the reclaiming phase. The diagnostic phases include the crisis, timeline, central issue stages; while the reclaiming phase includes, insight, new skills, and the transfer of training stages (Fecser & Long, 1998). Each of these stages has a significant role that the child will cooperate in to benefit from the strategy of LSCI. The first stage the “crisis” is where the professional will be sharing an interest in why the child is upset and acknowledging they may have valid reason to be upset. The Timeline, stage two of LSCI is the teacher listening to the child’s story and to validate the child’s view of the crisis. The third stage is defining the central issues, to see if the child takes part in self-defeating patterns. If the child does show a repetition of self-defeating patterns then the professional will have to determine which of the six LSCI strategies to have the child partake in. The fourth stage is the start of the reclaiming phase, which involves having the child recognize their patterns of self-defeating behavior and develop a plan to change the child’s behavior. The fifth stage enables the child to be able to incorporate new skills to partake in to change the behavior. The sixth stage “transfer of training” is where the professional would help the student to prepare to be able to reinforce the new skills he or she has learned through the process of the Life Space Crisis Intervention. The Life Space Crisis Intervention approach allows the staff to use the student crises as critical opportunities for positive change (Duggan & Dawson, 2004).

The Effectiveness of the Life Space Crisis Intervention A group of professionals in the New York City school system went through a study with two groups of students, one being the control group and the experimental group of students being the ones who will partake in the Life Space Crisis Intervention to deal with their crises. New York City’s district 75 are focused on setting limits on harmful behaviors and teach more adaptive ways to cope with their feelings and getting along with others (Duggan & Dawson, 2004, p. 37). This study involved two inner city junior high schools special education programs. The study was observed over three semesters and three different phases. The first phase was the pre-test period to collect data and create a baseline. The second phase included the all the training to each professional that would be involved in the study of the effectiveness of LSCI is. The professionals working with the control group were receiving support on how to develop their own strategies to manage student crises. The third phase was where the professionals would incorporate the LSCI process to the students when a crisis appeared and to collect post-test data. The study on the effectiveness of the life space crisis intervention in new york city’s district 75 has proven that the number of student crises had significantly reduced over time when utilizing the LSCI program. The experimental group showed a significant decrease of student crises per month. The experimental group showed a decrease of 53% percent less crises a month with the LSCI established. While the control group’s mean of crises per student a month actually had increased (Dawson, 2003, p. 225-226). The data collected also showed that there was a decrease in student suspensions when LSCI was initiated. During the pre-test 25% of the students in the experimental group were suspended and 15% percent of the control group ended up suspended for inappropriate behavior. During the post-test results show that only 5% of the experimental group was suspended along with the control group with 9% of their students being suspended. The experimental group had a 20% decrease of student suspensions while utilizing the Life Space Crisis Interventions (Dawson, 2003, p. 226). The data collected presented that the attendance rate of the students in each group increased while partaking in LSCI and other managing behavior strategies. The experimental group participating in LSCI strategies displayed a significant difference between the control group’s attendance rates by 12% (Dawson, 2003, p. 226-227). The students who took part in developing the strategies of the Life Space Crisis Intervention show significant increase of improved behavior and attendance rates.

After the three phases and pre and post-tests data collected they had results that proved Life Space Crisis Intervention is and could be a positive thing for professionals to be trained and certified to handle students crises. Some of the students could be mainstreamed into general education course because they presented such improvement on controlling their inappropriate behaviors. By the end of the study the staff certified in LSCI felt abundantly more confident to be able to deal with student crises (Dawson, 2003, p. 228). The Life Space Crisis Intervention allows students to grasp their behavior before they see themselves become out of control and can be a great strategy for teachers and students to partake in to resolve the majority of students’ aggressive behavior. Why Should Life Space Crisis Intervention be Accepted?
The Life Space Crisis Intervention should an accepted strategy in dealing with children with emotion and behavioral problems because it individually helps them understand why they are upset or angry.
It allows them to participate in metacognition and realize where they went wrong before an eruption stage may occur. The students are able to feel as though they are controlling their behavior and not to get out of control and hurt those around them. It is extra training for all the professionals involved but if it is able to reduce student crises, suspension, and increases attendance rates then I don’t see why it is not a suburb addition to school systems to have for their students. The students will be able to feel capable and they will connect with you on a personal level. Those are two incredibly important things for a student to feel in your classroom. In Conclusion I would say that the Life Space Crisis Intervention is a exceptionally intriguing verbal strategy that allows students to be able to become aware of their self-defeating behavior patterns they may be taking out on themselves and how to resolve
it.