Your FBA is a Fantasy
Trauma-Informed · Brain-Based · Skill-Focused · Neuro-Affirming
The Why & How of Creating Functional Behavior Assessments & Behavior Support Plans That Improve Emotional, Behavioral & Academic Functioning — and Build Lasting Resilience.
DAY 1 · LIVE VIA ZOOM
February 10, 2026
Fantasy to Foundation
Redefining the WHY & HOW
DAY 2 · ZOOM OR RECORDING
March 3, 2026
Foundation to Transformation
Guided Application
Why This Training Exists
There Is a Child in Your School
Trying as Hard as They Can.
You know that child. The one whose behavior plan grows longer every year, whose file is thick with observations and interventions — and yet something still isn't shifting. Not because the educators don't care. Not because the child doesn't want to do well. But because the tools we were given weren't designed to see what is happening beneath the behavior.
Today's most vulnerable students are carrying something into school that our traditional frameworks were never built to address. What looks like defiance is often a nervous system doing exactly what it was shaped to do — protect. As Rick and Doris Bowman write in Your FBA Is a Fantasy:
"Children who show chronic difficulty meeting our expectations are almost always unable, not unwilling."
— Rick & Doris Bowman, Your FBA Is a Fantasy
That single shift — from won't to can't yet — changes everything: how we assess, how we plan, and how we show up for the students who need us most. When we stop asking "What is this child trying to get or avoid?" and start asking "What skills does this child need — and what conditions make those skills accessible?" we stop chasing behavior and start building real, lasting change.
"What these children carry into school isn't a behavior problem — it's a biology problem. It lives in their nervous system, in their muscles, in their posture, and in their readiness to survive."
— Your FBA Is a Fantasy
An Approach Built for Today's Students
Four Lenses. One Powerful Shift.
Brain-Based
Rooted in neuroscience — understanding how trauma and toxic stress literally reshape brain architecture, and what that means for behavior in the classroom.
Trauma-Informed
Grounded in the understanding that nervous system dysregulation — not defiance — is driving the behaviors that challenge us most.
Skill-Focused
Every behavior is a skill demonstration or a skill request. We help you identify the gaps — and build plans that actually develop those skills over time.
Neuro-Affirming
Strengths-based and dignity-centered — shifting from "What is wrong with this child?" to "What does this child need in order to thrive?"
What You'll Walk Away With
Practical. Evidence-Based.
Ready to Use Monday Morning.
1
Foundations for Looking Deeper
Understand the neuroscience of trauma and toxic stress — and why addressing root causes, not surface symptoms, is the only path to meaningful and lasting change.
2
A New Framework for FBAs & BSPs
Learn how brain-based, skills-focused assessments more effectively address the impacts of trauma than traditional models — with direct comparison and application.
3
Proactive Regulation Planning
Processes to assess and build proactive regulation as a core component of any plan — so that students become more accessible to intervention and connection.
4
Intervention Strategies the Brain Can Tolerate and Grow From
Key components of trauma-informed FBAs and BSPs that ensure interventions align with what the nervous system can actually receive, integrate, and build on.
5
Guided Application — Day 2
Take everything from Day 1 and apply it in a supported, structured format — building effective behavior support plans for real students in real contexts.
Rick Bowman
Doris Bowman
Rick and Doris Bowman are the founders of Bowman Consulting Group — nationally recognized trainers, authors, and consultants, equipping schools and organizations to implement trauma-informed, neuroscience-aligned behavior support that actually works for today's kids.
For over a decade, they have traveled the nation delivering live and virtual trainings, working side by side with educators, school psychologists, behavior specialists, and district leaders who are exhausted, yet committed, and ready for something that works.
Team Bowman doesn't just teach strategies — they shift paradigms. By grounding their work in 60+ years of modern brain science and the neuroscience of trauma and connection, Rick and Doris arm the adults in the room with the best in trauma-responsive practices and systems to become the most powerful intervention in a child's life.
Rick Bowman - M.A. in Clinical Psychology
Certified Trauma & Resilience Practitioner – Clinical (CTRP-C®)
Certified HeartMath and “The Resilience Advantage” Trainer
Certified Trainer in Collaborative Problem Solving®MGH(Think:Kids, Massachusetts General Hospital)
K-21 licensed school administrator in the state of Oregon
Doris Boman - M.S. in Education/Special Education
Graduate Certification — Applied Educational Neuroscience
Advanced Certified Trauma & Resilience Practitioner – Education (ACTRP-E®)
Certified “Stress & Well-Being Assessment” Provider, HeartMath
Certified Trainer in Collaborative Problem Solving®MGH (Think:Kids, Massachusetts General Hospital)
K-21 licensed special educator and school administrator in the state of Oregon