Behavior Management

Achievement Place Model

The behavior management system at Reno County Youth Services is based on an Achievement Place Model. This model has been described as a community-based, family style, behavior modification program for youth in crisis.

System Goals

The goals are to teach the youth appropriate social skills such as introductions and manners, academic skills such as study and homework behavior, self-help skills such as meal preparation and personal hygiene, and other skills that are thought to be necessary for them to be successful in society.

Rather than using a point system, feedback is given in terms of dollars and cents written on a daily checkbook sheet. The main emphasis of the program is on teaching the youth the appropriate behaviors they need to be successful participants in the community.

Encouraging Good Behavior

Behaviors that are viewed as useful to the youth in school, at home, and in the community, are encouraged. Other behaviors, viewed as counterproductive in the sense that they are socially unacceptable, are discouraged in an effort to decrease their frequency.

We have found that a community-based group home that keeps the youth in daily contact with their community offers many opportunities to observe and modify deviant behaviors and to teach the youth alternative ways to deal with their parents, teachers, and friends. These behaviors are taught by the professional Youth Care Staff and Juvenile Corrections Officers who direct and operate the program.