Our Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner Claire played a pivotal role in the collaborative efforts to support NDIS participants and their families during crisis, coordinating resources and ensuring timely assistance.
Throughout the positive behaviour support process, we aim to reduce the frequency and severity of a participant’s focus behaviours. We work with all the key stakeholders to ensure consistency in strategy implementation and that all aspects of the participant’s life are addressed.
I would like to focus on one participant from my caseload to provide an example of my experiences working in a multidisciplinary team to support those in crisis. This young person entered the behaviour support realm, where multiple aspects of their life were being impacted by stress. They had recently sustained significant trauma, and their parents were at breaking point.
This participant had a large support team around them and their family. This included hospital social workers, hospital school teams, paediatricians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, equine therapists, social workers, and support workers. At the time I met them, they also had a representative from the Department of Child Protection recently come on board.
By holding a case meeting with the above stakeholders and the mother, we were able to address the actions needed to support the family unit and reduce the level of stress being experienced.
To provide support through behaviour support methods, I developed a detailed interim behaviour support plan, which assisted in providing a range of strategies to prevent and manage behaviour of focus displays.
Interim behaviour support plans provide insight into the behaviours that are occurring, hypotheses on why they are occurring as well as providing strategies on how to prevent, manage, and respond to behavioural displays. This plan is reviewed after 6 months when a comprehensive behaviour support plan is implemented in its place (this is a much more detailed and accurate version).
Training was then able to be provided to the various stakeholder areas, which improved service delivery and increased confidence in the support persons’ skill base. Additionally, by using a QR code to collect behavioural data in real time, this also simplified the way in which providers and the family were able to record any incidences of behaviours that occurred. Feedback gained from various areas suggested that this was efficient and easy to do compared to traditional methods (such as a written ABC forms).
Thankfully, due to the collaborative efforts, there was a reduction in displays of behaviours of focus. This has had a significant impact on the participant’s wellbeing as well as their family’s wellbeing. This participant’s behaviour support journey is ongoing and there is a positive outlook on their success long-term.