Implementing Behaviour Support Plans: Training, Coaching and Monitoring
The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NQSC) have recently provided some guidance for Behaviour Support Practitioners about what is expected when we do work to implement, monitor and review plans. This has also been on our minds at Ability Consultants, and coincidentally, we’ve just released a new course covering some of this stuff!
The Commission’s Guidance
If you missed it, check out this link to the NQSC’s Policy Guidance: Monitoring and Reviewing Comprehensive Behaviour Support Plans.
To briefly summarise, this document aims to give practitioners guidance about what is involved in the work to monitor, review and implement behaviour support plans, giving 12 points of guidance about what practitioners are expected to do. It gathered together some resources which are adjacent and relevant to this work.
My initial response to this piece of guidance was “great”, for two reasons:
- It talks about and promotes some aspects of quality behaviour support service, rather than focussing on aspects of compliance and the line where bad practice turns into something that can result in punitive action.
- It talks about some of the stuff that we’ve been thinking about here at Ability Consultants, and affirms that some of the work we’ve been doing in this space is barking up the right tree!
Ability Consultants’ Work In This Space
For a number of years now, Ability Consultants has had as part of its overall mission to generously contribute to the behaviour support sector, and a big part of the way we’ve done this is in developing and sharing online courses free of charge for anyone in the world to complete.
Referring back to the NDIS PBS Capability Framework, until now, we’ve had courses covering Functional Assessment (Functions and Formulations) and Planning (Multi-Element Interventions). The next step was always to turn our minds to content about Implementation, and this was something we really wanted to nail, because it is the part of the work we’ve always found it hardest to get good guidance on.
There often seems to be an underlying assumption that implementation in Positive Behaviour Support is something that people should intuitively know how to do well, and that great supervision is the way practitioners are expected to learn about it. And indeed, some practitioners do a wonderful job of it, despite the lack of practical assistance available to help them learn how. For the rest of us, we wanted to provide a practical toolkit to help practitioners to approach the work with forethought and rigour in the same way they are taught to approach their assessment and planning work.
As it turns out, the release of the Commission’s guidance about this stuff coincides pretty closely with the culmination of our work on the topic, and we’ve just released our newest course, Implementation For Meaningful Change. We’ve got a follow up course on Know It Works deep in development too, which we hope will similarly add value in the spirit of the Commission’s guidance on monitoring plans. We hope that our contributions to the sector related to the Implementation and Know It Works parts of the Capability Framework will be a helpful addition to practitioners’ toolkits and help them do great work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I access your free Positive Behaviour Support training?
Access our free PBS training anytime at https://abilityconsultants.com.au/training. Our courses are available to all learners, in Australia and around the world.
What is the name of your newest PBS course? What is it about?
Our latest PBS course is called “Implementation for Meaningful Change”. This five-part series is about implementing PBS plans, with a focus on training, coaching, certification and monitoring.
Who is this training designed for?
This course is for behaviour support practitioners and individuals wanting to learn more about the implementation of behaviour support plans.
Where can I find out more about PBS training at Ability Consultants?
Click here to learn more about training we provide to our behaviour support practitioners.
Contributors
Written by Steve Davies MSpPath, CPSP, Member BSPA, Member BILD, Member AGOSCI, Advanced/Specialist Behaviour Support Practitioner and Clinical Operations Manager
Steve's career is underpinned by his passion to assist people with disabilities to overcome barriers to their best quality of life. Steve is driven to make PBS accessible to everyone, and build collaborative teams around each individual.
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