Improving engagement in behaviour support planning

Liam Doyle, Project Assistant, Community Development
(VALID – Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability; Melbourne, VIC)

My position in The Right Direction project was within the self-advocacy side of it, involvement with Heather, one of my colleagues and a few other self-advocates from around Australia.

Heather Forsyth, Senior Self Advocate
(VALID – Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability; Melbourne, VIC)

I was involved in making sure that people with a disability were heard.

We had the researchers and we had other partners that helped put this together.

People with a disability were the most important people in it because we're the ones that live the experience.

Liam Doyle

So, The Right Direction was based on three focus groups in the early days of it.

There were people involved in different settings, so we had two disability focus groups.

One was more set on people in group homes and that's really where they see this sort of behaviour getting used by staff members.

Heather Forsyth

When we did the workshop here at the uni, was having all the self-advocates in the one room, and I think that made it a lot easier for people to – we felt comfortable saying how we felt.

One of the quotes was, 'We're not robots'.

We are people. So treat us like people. We're human beings.

Liam Doyle

Let's go back over the co-design aspect of this project.

The co-design obviously was not just designed with people in the project doing the full research and that. Us with lived experience of disability, the lived experienced people, [were also] doing the focus groups.

I was more focusing on what I’ve seen around the community.

I think one of my main focuses was always going to everyone else on the project, 'Make sure we make the wording in a correct manner.'

'Make sure that it’s easy to understand.'

Heather Forsyth

And making sure that everything that we put in the website is in plain English, and in easy read for people with a disability to make sure that they understand where it's all coming from.

Liam Doyle

I think my hope aligns with the uni’s and everyone else's.

The hope that the general practitioner sees the point of view of the people with a disability, their support workers and their family and friends.

Closing credits (text presented on screen)

How will you use these ideas to improve engagement in your behaviour support practice?

Stuart Martin, Core Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner
(Marathon Health; Albury, New South Wales)

Drawing on the knowledge of peers is something that's critical in your own professional development. Particularly for me being fairly new as a positive behaviour support practitioner.

Heather Lambert, Clinical Lead – Positive Behaviour Support
(Marathon Health; Albury, New South Wales)

Practitioners working in rural and remote areas are going to bounce ideas off of each other. ‘Hey, I came up with this barrier – did you have that before?’ ‘What did you do in that situation?’

Stuart Martin

Having structures in place within the workplace to allow that to happen, that's critical. And where I work, we do that.

Doug Payne, Senior Clinical Consultant, Behaviour Support Practitioner
(SAL Consulting – Darwin, Northern Territory)

Fortunately, the company I work for has people with lots of experience and a huge range of experience. There are seniors within our company that you can run ideas past.

Danielle Quinlan, Clinical Consultant, Speech Pathologist
(SAL Consulting – Darwin, Northern Territory)

I've had lots of behaviour support clinicians reach out to me and ask for my specific input. We have this back-and-forth conversation always in the office about our shared clients, which is really lovely.

Heather Lambert

And really that collaborative approach amongst practitioners is what's going to strengthen the service as well and give everyone, those ideas of how to connect in more creative ways.

Danielle Quinlan

When we are all engaging together, we're all meeting, we're all connecting we’re all sharing our information, we're more likely to have better outcomes for our clients.

Closing credits (text presented on screen)

How will you use these ideas to improve engagement in your behaviour support practice?