Increasing Praise by Staff Members in Juvenile Facility: A Group Contingency Approach

Research suggests that praise serves as a key component of behavioral interventions. However, residential facilities may lack systems to teach their staff members to provide praise to residents. As a structured approach to behavior management, an applied behavior analysis (ABA) team in a secure juvenile justice facility utilized group contingencies to increase written praise, termed "kudos," by staff members across five dormitories. While implementing the Kudos program, the ABA team measured the frequency of (a) verbal and gestural forms of praise to evaluate generalization from written Kudos and (b) residents' problem behavior. Results of statistical analyses indicated increased written praise by staff members was associated with decreased problem behavior by residents; however, the written behavior of staff did not generalize to verbal and gestural forms of praise toward residents. Practice implications, including strategies for implementing praise consistently in juvenile justice settings, are discussed.