Our approach to positive behaviour support

Our approach begins with a functional assessment. What is this behaviour achieving for this person, and what would achieve it better? A behaviour that gets someone out of a room they cannot bear is doing a job. So is one that finally brings a worker to their side.

From there we change the things we can change:

• The home itself, and the sensory environment inside it
• The roster, and who is on it
• The daily rhythm, and how much of it the person chooses
• The staff team, matched to the person rather than the shift

Alongside that, we build skills and supports that make the behaviour unnecessary. The cycle repeats: assess what the behaviour achieves, prevent by changing what can be changed, and manage with agreed, least restrictive responses. Each turn of the cycle is informed by the data support workers record on shift.

We are careful about what we promise. The research is clear that good behaviour support can reduce behaviours of concern, and that skilled everyday support markedly improves people's engagement in their own lives and their choice over it. It is equally clear that this work takes time.

So progress is measured over months, in small and specific things:

• A restrictive practice reduced, then removed
• A week without a support worker changing
• A first Saturday out that nobody had to cut short
• A medical appointment that got finished

None of those is dramatic. All of them are what a better life is actually made of.

We will not promise to eliminate someone's behaviours of concern. What we can do is show you what is changing, and how we know.

Anyone who does is either not being straight with you or has not met the person yet. The data comes from each shift, checked against the plan, and shared with you and with the practitioner.

Our practitioners are assessed as suitable by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and practise against the Positive Behaviour Support Capability Framework. If someone already has their own practitioner, we implement their plan and feed our data back to them. Either way, the person stays at the centre.

If you are supporting someone whose behaviour is telling you something, and you are not sure what, talk to us. Call 02 9556 9500 or get in touch, or read more about our behaviour support.