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lsci.org

The Courage to

Respond Differently

Building Adult Capacity to Transform Crisis Moments

Elaine Harper, PhD

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Reframe crisis moments by understanding the decisive role of the adult.
Understand key self-efficacy research and how adult confidence and clarity influence crisis intervention quality.
Explore how LSCI strengthens adult capacity by building insight, regulation, and readiness to respond differently.

Session Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Reframe crisis moments through a relational lens, recognizing how adult responses shape the direction of the storm.
Understand the scientific case for adult self-efficacy as a key predictor of crisis intervention quality, burnout resilience, and overall performance.
Connect self-efficacy research to real-world practice in youth-serving and school-based environments.
Explore how Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) strengthens adult courage, confidence, and clarity during high-stress interactions.
Engage in practical exercises to interpret challenging behavior differently, using LSCI’s reclaiming interventions as a guide.
Identify actionable strategies and implementation pathways that build adult capacity and support the meaningful adoption of LSCI within programs, teams, or systems.

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A storm moment

Devin, a kid who never stops moving and always talks back, enters the school classroom whirling around with his backpack crashing into classmate after classmate.

The staff yells at him right away, “Devin, if that’s how you’re going to enter the room, you might as well turn right around and get back on the bus because I don’t want you here!”

Devin responds, “Who peed in your cornflakes this morning?”

The staff points to the door, saying “I’m done, Devin. Sit down quietly or GET OUT!”

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Why do some adults de-escalate storms… while others get swept into them?

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Traditional Response to Crisis

Unchanged

Worse

Crisis

Let’s look at this diagram. When a kid has a personal crisis, adults intervene. There are three possible outcomes to the crisis.

Let’s start with the arrow that goes straight across. Oftentimes, there is a consequence for the young person’s behavior.

Ask: “Does punishment alone stop the problem behavior? In other words, does the kid not repeat the behavior?” (Response from group is usually “No—Kid repeats the behavior”).

Rote punishment typically has little effect on changing behavior because it addresses only the visible symptoms and not the underlying causes of the behavior. A child who is not offered the opportunity to process their perceptions, thoughts, or feelings about a stressful event will not feel that adults care about them and therefore will rarely make positive changes to their future behavior. Nothing changes except that the likelihood of future problems often increases.

Now, let’s look at the arrow that takes a downward turn. Unfortunately, most staff are not trained to deal with kids’ crises. They are quick to speak and slow to listen. They do not realize that the problems kids cause are not the causes of their problems. Their reactions can make matters worse: a crisis can be escalated and relationships can be damaged.

Ask: “What have you seen staff say and do that makes the situation worse?” (Response is usually: staff humiliate, degrade, belittle kid, “You again!, I’m going to call your parent”…, etc.)

This type of reaction from adults can severely damage the relationship between the kid and the staff, and ultimately, the entire school/residence/agency experience. The young person loses trust and their negative beliefs about adults are reinforced. It becomes more likely than ever that the kid will be involved in even more crises as a result of alienation from staff.

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Adult Capacity as the KEY

Improved

When

adults regulate, youth regulate

Crisis

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The Role of

Adult Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in their ability to successfully handle challenges, manage their emotions, and take effective action in a specific situation.

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Self-Efficacy = Strong Predictor

Self-efficacy predicts adult performance, decision-making, and behavior under stress:

High self-efficacy = better task performance, contextual performance, and fewer counterproductive behaviors
Work environment directly influences self-efficacy and performance.
Adults with confidence and clarity respond more therapeutically and consistently.

(Abun et al., 2021)

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Why it Matters in Crisis

Crisis-specific and generalized self-efficacy protect against burnout and secondary trauma/stress (STS):

Higher crisis-specific efficacy = lower burnout; lower STS�Self-efficacy buffers traumatic stress, enhancing professional effectiveness.
Adults with stronger efficacy maintain grounding in chaotic moments.

(Minges, 2025)

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If you want better outcomes for youth, strengthen adult capacity.

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Life Space

Crisis Intervention

(LSCI)

A capacity-building process

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The Six LSCI Interventions

Red Flag:

Identify the real source of stress

Reality Check:

Organize perceptions of reality

New Tools:

Build Social-Emotional Skills

Benign Confrontation:

Challenge Unacceptable Behaviors

Regulate & Restore:

Strengthen self-control

Peer Manipulation:

Expose peer exploitation

LSCI gives adults multiple pathways to understand behavior. It is not a one-size fits all approach – it recognizes that behavior is a part of the story, merely a symptom of what is going on in a young persons’ life.

In schools and treatment programs, we have seen young people experience thousands of personal crises. What is interesting is that most of these crises fit into specific patterns or categories. LSCI has identified six of the most common patterns of self-defeating behavior. Each pattern has different outcome goals.

This is one of the key attributes that distinguishes LSCI from other programs. Most crisis intervention programs teach a generic process to use with all students experiencing a personal crisis. LSCI is better than a “one size fits all” program. It is tailored to a young person’s specific patterns of problem behavior. This slide gives the name and ultimate learning outcome for each pattern.

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LSCI & Adult Readiness

Source: Riter (2009)

Key findings: LSCI training strengthened adult readiness & confidence

Higher self-efficacy in managing challenging behaviors
Strong correlation between valuing LSCI and being willing to adapt discipline approaches
Training predicts confidence
Supports a shift toward individualized, therapeutic responses

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LSCI & System-Level Change

Source: Lewis, et al (2014)

Key findings: Schools using LSCI as part of a comprehensive model saw:

56% fewer suspensions
75% fewer office referrals
Significant gains in staff preparedness to prevent and de-escalate crises

More therapeutic, fewer punitive responses to student behavior

Greater recognition and assessment of emotional/behavioral crises

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LSCI & Student Growth

Source: White-McMahon (2009)

Key Findings: LSCI improved core socioemotional skills in students:

Significant gains in sensitivity, awareness, and self-regulation
Medium to large effect sizes across most intervention types
Evidence that LSCI supports healthier responses to stress
Potential to reduce suspensions and dropout risk through improved coping

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4 types of Courage

Emotional – staying regulated
Relational – willingness to move toward struggling young person
Cognitive – questioning our first interpretation of behavior
Cultural – push against systems that normalize exclusion or punishment

Up to this point, we’ve been talking about capacity, confidence, and self-efficacy. This slide is where we shift into the human side of that work — the kind of courage adults must bring into crisis moments. LSCI is a model that requires four kinds of courage:

Emotional courage — the bravery to stay regulated even when everything in the room is dysregulated. This is the adult choosing not to mirror the storm.
Relational courage — the willingness to move toward a struggling young person rather than away from them. It’s resisting the urge to avoid, punish, or shut down.
Cognitive courage — the courage to question our first interpretation of a behavior and ask, ‘What else might be going on here?’ LSCI is built around understanding meaning, not just managing compliance.
Cultural courage — the courage to push against systems that normalize exclusion or punishment. Many environments reward quick removal. Courage asks us to slow down and respond, not react.

You’ll notice all four of these align directly with what self-efficacy research tells us adults need: regulation, clarity, confidence, and a supportive environment. This is the groundwork LSCI builds.

Take a quiet moment and notice:

Which type of courage comes most naturally to you?
Which type feels the hardest for you to access?
How does that show up in your practice?
There’s no right answer. We’re all shaped by our own histories, workplaces, and stress responses. The goal here is simply awareness — because LSCI hinges on adults who know themselves well enough to intervene intentionally.
If you’d like, turn to someone near you and share one insight.

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Crisis is an Opportunity

It’s not an interruption.

It IS the work.

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LSCI Example Walkthrough

Doug is a young person with poor self-regulation skills who typically believes that others are out to get him.

One day, he's walking down the crowded school hallway with his new girlfriend when Tom bumps into him accidentally.

Doug immediately jumps to the conclusion that Tom is trying to humiliate him in front of his new girlfriend. Doug shoves Tom into a locker and insists that he is acting in self-defense after Tom’s “attack.”

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Cognitive Map of the Six Stages of LSCI

Stage 1: Drain Off (Co-regulation)

Staff de-escalating skills to drain off the youth’s intense feelings while controlling one’s counter-aggressive reactions

Stage 2: Timeline (The Storytelling Stage)

Staff relationship skills to obtain and validate the youth’s perception of the crisis

Stage 3: Central Issue (What is the most important part to the youth?)

Staff diagnostic skills to determine if the crisis represents one of the six LSCI patterns of self-defeating behavior

Stage 4: Insight (Responsibility, Control, Power)

Staff clinical skills to pursue the youth’s specific pattern of self-defeating behavior for personal insight and accountability

Stage 5: New Skills

Staff empowering skills to teach the youth new social skills to overcome their pattern of self-defeating behavior

Stage 6: Transfer of Learning

Staff consultation and contracting skills to help the youth re-enter the activity and to reinforce and generalize new social skills

Diagnostic

Stages

Long-term Learning

Stages

Life Space Crisis Intervention is a six-stage process, a journey with a beginning, middle and end. Every single one of the six interventions follows these six stages. The first three stages are diagnostic stages. We are trying to figure out what is happening with the youth. The last three stages are the long-term learning stages. We are helping children learn from their mistakes and practice new skills that will help them make better choices in the future.

The funny thing is that most of you likely already do most or all of this – just not necessarily in this order. And it’s truly not about “the steps” – this is a model that is actively having us think differently.

The first three stages are not about fixing behavior. They’re about understanding what kind of problem this is. That is why we think of this as “diagnostic” – we are determining what is going on before we judge, offer fixes, tell them what they did wrong, etc.
The final three stages are about helping the youth understand what happened, connect feeling to behavior, and understand a pattern of behavior that is making things harder for them. If we misdiagnose the problem, we will choose the wrong intervention.

When we look at Doug through the six stages, and understand things from his perspective (i.e. “people are out to get me”) we get a clearer picture — this isn’t defiance or aggression for its own sake. It’s an error in perception. Which is why Reality Check is the right intervention.

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Distorted perceptions and thinking errors lead to chronic emotional and behavioral problems

Reality Check

Central Issue: Errors in perception.

The Reality Check is essentially a series of errors in perception. The Reality Check Intervention helps young people develop insight and skills to consider alternate perceptions of reality. For example, Doug is a young person with poor self-regulation skills who typically believes that others are out to get him. One day, he's walking down the crowded school hallway with his new girlfriend when Tom bumps into him accidentally. Doug immediately jumps to the conclusion that Tom is trying to humiliate him in front of his new girlfriend. Doug shoves Tom into a locker and insists that he is acting in self-defense after Tom’s “attack.”

In reality, Doug completely misperceived Tom’s intentions; his impulsive, aggressive response is part of a larger pattern that frequently gets Doug in trouble at school.

The Reality Check intervention can be used to help Doug correct the perception that others are always out to get him and see that he has a pattern of acting out aggressively because of his repetitive errors in perception. Outcome Goal: Young person acknowledges their role in creating the conflict; begins to see other ways of viewing the development of the conflict.

I want to briefly walk you through one of the reclaiming interventions so you can see how the LSCI lens changes the way we interpret behavior. Continuing to use Reality Check as an example:

On the surface, a youth may appear oppositional or intentionally difficult.
Underneath, they may be struggling with irrational beliefs, inaccurate self-talk, or distorted expectations.
The adult’s role isn’t to win an argument — it’s to help the young person reconcile their perception with reality.

So, instead of:�‘You’re being disrespectful,’ or ‘You’re overreacting’’ ‘You know better’�LSCI helps the adult say:�‘Let’s look together at what’s happening here. What did you expect? What actually happened?’

This is where adult capacity shows up most clearly: staying curious instead of confrontational, reflective instead of reactive.
LSCI gives adults a map for making sense of behavior and guiding youth back to insight.

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Environments that support adults create adults who can support youth

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Build Adult Capacity with LSCI

We have to change adult behavior to impact youth behavior

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Skills & Mindset

When we talk about adopting LSCI, we’re not talking about a one-time training. The Institute is very clear: LSCI is both a skill set and a mindset — and implementing it well requires strategic planning and long-term support.

The first step is building strong, supportive core teams, rather than sending a few isolated individuals. Programs who do this see skills stick because staff can rely on one another.
Next, leadership engagement is essential. When administrators understand and endorse LSCI, it becomes part of the culture — not just a technique. A shared LSCI language helps everyone communicate clearly during crisis and recovery.
Third, LSCI thrives when the conditions support it — when adults have spaces to regulate youth, when staff feel safe talking about their mistakes, and when the program values relationship over punishment.
And perhaps most importantly, LSCI requires maintenance and mastery. Ongoing coaching, refresher sessions, and structured time for reflection keep the model alive. Many organizations even certify internal trainers or coaches to sustain the work.
This is what it looks like when LSCI is more than a training — when it becomes the lens through which the entire system responds to kids.

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Shift one response. Choose a moment this week to pause, interpret differently, and respond with intention rather than instinct.

Identify one condition that strengthens your adult capacity. What helps you stay grounded, regulated, and connected?

Call to Action

When crisis moments happen — and they will — the most powerful intervention in the room isn’t a strategy, a protocol, or even a specific model. It’s the adult. It’s you.

Your capacity to pause, to interpret differently, to stay connected when things get hard — that’s what shapes the outcome. And that’s what young people remember long after the moment has passed.

So as you head back into your work, I want to leave you with three simple next steps.

First, shift one response. Just one. Notice a storm building, take a breath, and choose a different entry point. Small choices can create big ripple effects.
Second, identify one condition that strengthens your capacity. What helps you show up as the version of yourself that kids need most? Find that condition — a supportive colleague, a calmer space, a grounding practice — and make a little more room for it.
And finally, explore LSCI training or implementation if today’s ideas resonated. LSCI is designed specifically to build the adult confidence, clarity, and courage we’ve been talking about. If your team or school wants to take the next step, the LSCI Institute has terrific resources and training pathways.

Ultimately, ‘unleashing the storm’ isn’t about controlling the chaos around us — it’s about unlocking the strength within us. When adults are supported, grounded, and skilled, young people feel safer, teams feel stronger, and crisis becomes something we navigate together rather than something we survive alone. Thank you for the work you do, the storms you step into, and the courage you bring to young people every single day.

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Learn more about

LSCI training & implementation:

Visit: www.lsci.org�

Email: elaineharperphd@gmail.com

Thank you!

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References

Abun, D., Nicolas, M. T., Apollo, E., Magallanes, T., & Encarnacion, M. J. (2021). Employees’ self-efficacy and work performance as mediated by work environment. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science, 10(7), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.20525/ijrbs.v10i7.1470

Bernales-Turpo, D., Quispe-Velasquez, R., Flores-Ticona, D., Saintila, J., Ruiz Mamani, P. G., Huancahuire-Vega, S., Morales-García, M., & Morales-García, W. C. (2022). Burnout, professional self-efficacy, and life satisfaction as predictors of job performance in health care workers: The mediating role of work engagement. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 13, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/21501319221101845

Lewis, A. K., Nguyen, C., Freshour, C., Hoover, S., Bohnenkamp, J., Schaeffer, C., & Slade, E. (2014). Promoting school safety: A comprehensive emotional and behavioral health model (Final summary report; Award No. 2014-CK-BX-0021). National Institute of Justice, Office of Research and Evaluation; Baltimore County Public Schools; National Center for School Mental Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Minges, M. (2025). Generalized and crisis-specific self-efficacy, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress in the behavioral health crisis workforce (Doctoral dissertation, The George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development).

Riter, D. (2009). A study of self-efficacy of educational professionals in managing classroom behavior and their readiness for differentiating discipline (Doctoral dissertation, St. John Fisher College).

White-McMahon, M. (2009). The effects of Life Space Crisis Intervention on troubled students’ socioemotional growth and development (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).