Collaborative & Proactive Solutions: Ending Punitive Disciplinary Practices and Disproportionality

Course overview

This course, based on the Ask the Expert webinar series by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Dr. Ross Greene's Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) model as a practical, evidence-informed framework to replace punitive and exclusionary discipline with collaborative problem-solving. Learners examine the five CPS paradigm shifts (e.g., focusing on unsolved problems rather than behaviors), proactive assessment via the ALSUP, and structured Plans B/C to build skills such as flexibility, frustration tolerance, and emotion regulation. The session addresses the disproportionate impact of restraint, seclusion, and exclusionary discipline on Black and Brown students and highlights policy and systems-level strategies to reduce disproportionality. Concrete tools and examples illustrate how CPS is implemented across schools, families, and clinical settings to prevent crises and improve outcomes. The course, with an intended audience of social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and counselors, then presents how CPS supports equitable, trauma-informed, and developmentally responsive practice across school, family, and community systems by centering collaborative problem-solving and measurable skill-building.