Sharing the Zones
Dear Zones Community,
We are honored by the continuous interest and inquiries around how to share The Zones of Regulation framework with others, and we love how people are supporting each other in this endeavor. It is so rewarding to have such a tremendous following, and we are proud to work with an amazing community of providers, educators and caregivers.
It is with this backdrop that we are calling on you, our partners, to help The Zones of Regulation address concerns related to the sharing of online resources or materials that do not align with the sharing guidelines created by our publishing company, Social Thinking, who has also created some of the materials included in the Zones of Regulation.
To support and guide you, Social Thinking (also known as Think Social Publishing, Inc) has created this Handy Decision Tree to Sharing Intellectual Property and Terms of Use document to help answer questions regarding what can and cannot be created and shared based on intellectual property, copyright, and trademark laws. It is our responsibility as publisher, author and trainer of these materials to protect the fidelity of the framework/curriculum, which means protecting the copyright, trademark, and intellectual property rights.
Here are some of the reasons why we have these sharing guidelines in place:An unauthorized Zones of Regulation visual/creation is racist or negatively depicts a community, group, gender, race, etc. This sends a harmful message and misrepresents the use and teaching of The Zones of Regulation, while also casting the Zones in a negative light. This unfortunately happened last month where an unauthorized Zones visual negatively depicting students of color was bought off TeachersPayTeachers and sent home with students from multiple grades at a school. If tools teaching about regulating one’s emotions are presented with racist stereotypes, it is impossible for those victimized by these stereotypes to benefit from these lessons. These materials also perpetuate stereotypes causing longer term harm to these marginalized populations.
Derivative works are created that lack proper citation to the source materials: When we’re not bringing people back to the detailed original work that supports deeper skill development through the series of lessons laid out in The Zones of Regulation curriculum book, we risk that individuals are being taught Zones incorrectly, impartially or without fidelity.
The derivative work does not accurately reflect the teaching of The Zones of Regulation or the larger body of work within the Social Thinking Methodology: For example, The Zones of Regulation and other materials aimed at teaching aspects of our methodology should never be used as a behavior system, yet we see posts on sites that incorrectly depict this.
Openly sharing and selling Zones of Regulation derivatives violates intellectual property, trademark, and copyright laws. This perpetuates the above problems. If what you openly share creates confusion in the public as to the origin, then it is likely an infringement. Take for example if you create and openly share a visual that has intense feelings associated with the color red, are referencing the Red Zone, and title the work something like “The Colors of Regulation” or “Emotional Zones.” This would likely create confusion in the public with The Zones of Regulation and therefore be a violation. However, the NFL uses the term, Red Zone to describe the last 20 yards before the end zone. This would not be confused with The Zones of Regulation’s Red Zone which is used to describe intense feelings, so there is no conflict.
In creating Zones of Regulation products, we expend a huge amount of thinking, editing, and creativity to deliver quality work for our community. We recognize that our work at times needs to be adapted, modified, and expanded upon to meet your population’s needs; however, we ask that if you are to share any spin-off creations that includes The Zones of Regulation language and/or visuals, it is with only the immediate community you serve, such as your students/clients and those family members or colleagues involved in your students/clients’ program. We, along with our publisher, ask that you have a system in place to vet the integrity of these derivative works, prior to sharing any spin-offs creations that includes The Zones of Regulation language and/or visuals, or any other works within the Social Thinking Methodology. When this work is shared, it should only be done so on a password protected site to be available only to your colleagues and the immediate community you serve. Please do not post or share derivative Zones creations (lessons in any medium, Powerpoints/trainings, videos, and other Zones related activities) on open web-based channels, such as the SeeSaw Community pages, TeacherPayTeachers, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook groups, etc. If you have already done so, please remove those files from any open channels that are not allowed per our guidelines.
It is also important when adapting our work to add citations. For example: *Adapted/Expanded by [NAME], based on the original work, The Zones of Regulation™ Curriculum by Leah Kuypers 2011, ©Think Social Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.socialthinking.com. www.zonesofregulation.com Materials and images are not for public distribution.
We are grateful and appreciative to The Zones of Regulation community and recognize it takes a village to make this work. We thank you for your help to protect The Zones work and products.
Sincerely,
Leah Kuypers and The Zones of Regulation and Social Thinking Teams
DIGITAL USE OF SOCIAL THINKING MATERIALS
SOCIAL THINKING IP ON BLOGS, WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DECISION-TREE GUIDELINES
TERMS OF USE, DEFINITIONS, EXAMPLES, & FAQ