Behaviour Support Services
Behaviour Supports refers to the creation of individualised strategies for people with disability to reduce the occurrence and impact of concerning behaviours. These strategies typically aim to minimise the need for restrictive practices.
For All About You Supports (AAYS), Behaviour Supports can be an important part of providing holistic care for our clients. We empower people to soar!
Behavioural Supports can help someone to identify their own behavioural triggers and contribute to a person receiving a consistent, supportive approach to managing their behaviours. From there, we work with each client to establish how AAYS can best assist them with their needs.
Behaviour Supports and the NDIS
For NDIS participants, the requirement for Behaviour Supports is considered when they begin accessing the Scheme.
Each client goes through a process of assessment.
At times, the assessment types used may include the World Health Organisation Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) and a Pediatric Evaluation of Disability – Computer Adaptive Test (PEDI-CAT) assessment for young participants (if relevant).
These assessments are carried out by Allied Health professionals, such as Occupational Therapists or Psychologists and determine the participant’s functional, cognitive and sensory capacity to make decisions and manage their behaviours.
If the need for Behaviour Supports is identified, a Behaviour Support Plan will be put in place. This will include their formal diagnosis as well as an outline for recommended funding.
Our Approach to Behaviour Supports
At AAYS, we aim to get to know our client’s needs before we start with them so that we can provide them with the very best care. We take a holistic approach, and we carefully examine any existing NDIS reports.
Our Service Manager will engage with each client and their Support Worker to discuss the individual’s needs and how we can best implement their Plan. This may involve meetings with the client’s team, including their:
- Parents or caregivers
- Behavioural Therapist
- Occupational Therapist
- Speech Pathologist
This preliminary work enables us to understand:
- Their triggers for certain behaviours
- How to identify the onset of challenging behaviours
- Recommendations from their clinicians
- What disability services would be meaningful for them
It also means we can carry out any additional education or training that may be helpful for AAYS carers. This may include:
- Discussions and Q & A sessions for our carers with the Behavioural Therapist
- Training on identifying and managing key behaviours for our carers
- Understanding industry best practice in how to support the individual before, during and after those behaviours, as advised by medical professionals
Identifying the need for Behaviour Supports
The need for Behavioural Supports depends very much on the individual, their diagnosis and their circumstances. It may be appropriate for those who have a diagnosis relating to any type of physical, neurological or mental health-related disability.
Best Practice in Behaviour Supports
At AAYS we are well-positioned to help someone requiring Behaviour Supports. Many of our staff have:
- Undertaken Certificate III or Certificate IV in Disability
- Done training specifically for behaviour supports
- Completed traineeships giving them significant experience with people who need Behavioural Supports
- Gained experience providing supports
At AAYS, our holistic approach extends to our support workers and carers as well. We recognise that our staff members play an important role in providing a voice for those they care for and are often the identifiers of key behaviours. As such, their ability to notice and discuss a client’s behavioural changes is important for our client’s overall wellbeing and care.
At AAYS, we focus on:
- Having diverse services available (including services such as respite care, SIL accommodation)
- Facilitating further education for our staff members
- Fostering excellent communication and support for staff members to access further assistance whenever needed
- Regular training with support therapists for all staff members
- Improving our internal processes
How does AAYS support clients to achieve behaviour-related goals?
Each individual client will have very different needs, and our success comes from being able to identify and support those needs.
Building good, solid relationships underpin the work we do. As a provider, we understand the importance of asking questions, gathering information, and engaging with the individual participant as well as their family and other stakeholders.
This is critical in building positive relationships and – ultimately – in providing excellent service to each of our clients.
We apply our values of integrity, transparency, and honesty in the work we do. This also means recognising when something falls outside our scope; in these cases, we are committed to identifying that upfront and making recommendations so that each client can find the care providers they need.
Clinical Reflections: An AAYS Success Story
Our AAYS carers recently supported a man who lives with autism. He is non-verbal and has a visual impairment. This case demonstrates that listening to and learning from each and every client is important. After all, we’re all different, but we’re all in this together!
Our success with him was achieved by establishing a strong and trusting relationship. When getting to know him, we made sure we were open and transparent. We applied this through our own conversations with him, and also in encouraging him to engage with other people.
It was clear that he – and often the people around him – were apprehensive; both feared triggering a challenging behaviour in him and therefore tended to avoid engaging.
We encouraged him to overcome that apprehension by engaging in small ways to build his confidence. This included engaging with other support staff, and with other people in the community. For instance, he learnt to order lunch for himself at a café, and to ask questions when he needed to.
This is a great outcome!
This went a long way to breaking down that barrier for him, and also for the people around him.
We are proud to help empower this person to soar. The strategy of re-educating, in this case, both the client and the community around him, goes a long way towards building inclusion.
We understand that encouraging people to build confidence around their own disability, or to interact with those who have a disability, is such a meaningful way to support people who are living with disabilities.