Eight years ago, Carleen Doucet was making her regular visits to schools in the Lafayette Parish district of Louisiana, where she works as the system's crisis intervention specialist, when she noticed a disturbing trend: More students with severe emotional disabilities were enrolled in the district than ever before. Few teachers and other school personnel were capable of effectively managing the students' aggressive behavior without resorting to interventions such as seclusion and restraint. She believed more school personnel in the 26,000-student school district could benefit from practical training in light of the sharp increases in the student population. After receiving permission to attend a well-recognized crisis intervention program, Doucet returned to the district ready to train teachers and other school-based staff on how to use nonviolent crisis intervention techniques with their students.