The purpose of this study was to assess the perceived importance of specific contextual variables for initial implementation and sustainability of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS). A large, national sample of 257 school team members completed the School-Wide Universal Behavior Sustainability Index: School Teams, a research-validated measure of variables influencing sustainability of schoolwide behavior interventions. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to assess perceptions of the most and least important variables for initial implementation and sustainability, as well as variables perceived as more important to sustainability than initial implementation. Across quantitative and qualitative analyses, results indicated that administrator support and school team functioning were rated as the most important features for both initial implementation and sustainability, whereas barriers to SWPBS were rated as relatively less important. Staff support, integration into typical practice, and parent involvement were rated as significantly more important to sustainability than initial implementation. These results were consistent across types of raters and schools. Implications for enhancing implementation and sustainability of SWPBS are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine if an experimental five-item measure of barriers to implementing and sustaining school-wide prevention practices, the Assessment of Barriers to Implementation and Sustainability in Schools (ABISS), would relate to objective measures of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) implementation fidelity. The ABISS was administered to individuals in 704 U.S. schools implementing SWPBIS across 11 states, and scores were compared with school demographic variables and SWPBIS fidelity of implementation. Results showed acceptable model fit for the ABISS, partial measurement invariance, and statistically significant relations, after controlling for school demographic variables, with SWPBIS fidelity of implementation, except for schools implementing SWPBIS for 5 or more years. These patterns indicate substantial but decreasing relations of perceived barriers to implementation fidelity as schools continue to implement SWPBIS. Implications are discussed in terms of how assessment of perceived barriers can support implementation and sustainability of school-wide prevention practices.

Because of its widespread adoption and implementation (in over 13,000 schools in the US; Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, 2010), there has been increasing attention to how School-wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) systems can be sustained.Sustained implementation can be defined as "continued use of an intervention or prevention program, with ongoing implementation fidelity to the core program principles, after supplemental resources used to support initial training and implementation are withdrawn" (Han & Weiss, 2005, p. 666). The term sustainability regards a practice's potential for durable implementation with high fidelity, when considering features of the practice, its implementation, and the context of implementation. Though it can be tempting to consider sustainability as deriving entirely from the behavioral principle of maintenance, sustainability includes not only maintenance, but also ongoing adaptations to enhance a practice's effectiveness, efficiency, and contextual fit (Elias, Zins, Graczyk, & Weissburg, 2003;McLaughlin & Mitra, 2001). This process of adaptation is known as continuous regeneration (McIntosh, Horner, & Sugai, 2009).Given the importance of sustainability to continued positive outcomes for stakeholders and wise use of resources, there is an urgent need to explore theories of sustainability and glean practical information to make practices, including SWPBS, more sustainable. McIntosh, Horner, and Sugai (2009) proposed a model detailing the mechanisms of sustainability of school-based interventions, including SWPBS (see Figure 1). In the model, sustainability includes both three core activities and four principles involved in the process.These activities and principles all exist within the context of the school, district, and province/state, in recognition of the importance of contextual fit to sustainability (McIntosh,