Published on: September 23, 2026
A NABITA Tip of the Week by Makenzie Schiemann, Ph.D., M.S.
Behavioral Intervention Teams (BITs) were founded on the premise that no single college or school office possesses enough information, expertise, or perspective to understand complex human behavior in isolation. That principle remains just as relevant today, even as the work has become more complex.
A student exhibiting concerning behavior may also be managing disability-related needs, experiencing interpersonal violence, navigating emotional health concerns, or engaging with multiple support offices simultaneously. An employee of concern may raise questions spanning workplace behavior, threat assessment, legal obligations, supervisory practices, and institutional response, all at once.
This multidisciplinary reality shapes how the National Association for Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment (NABITA) approaches professional development, and it serves as the foundation of the 2026 NABITA and ATIXA Joint Annual Conference.
Perspective Makes Expertise More Effective
The goal is not to become experts in each other’s disciplines; it is to become better partners. Doing so requires understanding the questions our colleagues are asking, the constraints they face, and the frameworks they use to make decisions. When institutional professionals understand how different disciplines approach the same situation, collaboration becomes more intentional, communication improves, and institutional responses grow stronger.
Interdisciplinary practice begins long before a case reaches a team meeting. It begins when we learn together.
Better Questions Lead to Better Decisions
High-functioning teams are distinguished less by having all the answers than by asking better questions. They understand how different disciplines define risk, interpret information, balance competing priorities, and measure successful outcomes. They become comfortable challenging assumptions, identifying blind spots, and recognizing when another perspective should influence the conversation.
Those habits are not built through policy manuals. They are developed through discussion, debate, case analysis, and shared learning with professionals who approach similar situations from different vantage points. Exposure to those perspectives changes how teams think long before it changes how they act.
The Joint Annual Conference creates space to practice exactly this kind of thinking alongside professionals who may see the same problem through an entirely different lens.
Professional Development Should Reflect Institutional Reality
As institutions respond to increasingly nuanced situations, the functions of behavioral intervention, case management, civil rights compliance, threat assessment, student conduct, and institutional leadership intersect more frequently and with greater nuance.
This reality shaped last year’s first-ever Joint Annual Conference, and it continues to shape this year’s event. We have strengthened pathways between disciplines and continued refining an educational experience that reflects how institutional challenges are actually solved: collaboratively.
So, what does that mean for you in Baltimore? Register for the Joint Annual Conference, and you have access to every keynote, every featured session, and every concurrent session. You are not limited to a single track or discipline. Dedicated educational tracks in Higher Education, K-12 Education, Investigator, Title IX Coordinator, Advocacy & Prevention, BIT Operations, Case Management, and Safety & Threat make it easy to build depth in your own specialty, then step outside it to learn how colleagues across the institution approach related challenges.
You can extend that experience by adding certification training with the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) or NABITA before the conference, after it, or both. Pair focused skill development with the breadth of the Joint Annual Conference to explore operational strategy, violence risk assessment, institutional coordination, implementation-focused practices, and the issues most relevant to your role. In other words, come prepared to deepen what you know and broaden how you think.
Join Us in Baltimore
I hope you’ll join us in Baltimore this October for the 2026 NABITA and ATIXA Joint Annual Conference, as we celebrate NABITA’s 18th Annual Conference. Bring your expertise, your curiosity, and your perspective.
Together, we’ll continue strengthening a profession that recognizes our greatest resource isn’t simply what each of us knows individually, but what we learn when our perspectives converge.