External and Internal Coaches’ Perspectives About Overcoming Barriers to Universal Interventions

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) has been widely adopted in schools across the nation. One reason might be the availability of statewide training and implementation support infrastructures in many states across the country. However, even with the availability of support, some schools experience barriers typical to systems change activities. The research purpose of this study was to investigate how problems with staff and administrator buy-in of the universal intervention manifest and are resolved from the perspective of internal and external coaches. A second purpose of this study was to investigate the similarities and differences in how external and internal coaches view staff buy-in issues and the process for research. A total of 18 participants (9 external and 9 internal SWPBS coaches) participated in the study. Findings suggest commonalities across the types of (a) barriers participants encountered, (b) climate and systems influences, and (c) strategies used to resolve barriers. The findings also suggest the importance of staff having firsthand successes and the need for universal teams to “stick with” implementation over a period of several years before changes in staff resistance were evident.