Statewide Behaviour Intervention Service

1. Statewide Behaviour Intervention Service Building B, Level 1, 242 Beecroft Road EPPING NSW 2121 Ph (02) 8876 4000 Fax (02) 8876 4041 Website: www.dadhc.nsw.gov.au David Doyle Senior Clinical Consultant david.doyle@dadhc.nsw.gov.au

2. Session outline • How SBIS provides services. • How this service provision lead to the development of the Practice Guide. • Information about the Practice Guide. • Show and tell. • Questions

3. What is SBIS? • Statewide, specialist service within DADHC. • SBIS provides clinical support for behaviour intervention. • SBIS works as a tertiary service. • DADHC local clinical services • Non Government (DADHC funded) • Non Government (non DADHC funded) • Other government departments • Eg. Health, DoCS, DCS, DJJ, DET, OPG Who do we provide services to?

4. What does SBIS do? • Provides: • Clinical support to local services. • Immediate response \ advice to clinicians • Training • Resource development. • SBIS Contributes to: • The development of best practice in clinical services • Policy and legislative development across agencies.

5. Services we offer : • SBIS provides advice and support in relation to: • Behavioural assessment • Intervention design • Implementation planning • Implementation • Monitoring and review of interventions • Service system evaluation

6. When would you contact SBIS? • Locally based intervention has been unsuccessful • There is a need for an independent perspective – a second opinion. • Assistance is needed with training. • Clinical experience in similar cases is needed. • The clinicians general practice would benefit from collaborative involvement.

7. Overview of inconsistencies in practice highlighted by our process of work. • Extent of information collected and depth of analysis varies. • There is different understandings of what constitutes a Behavioural Assessment. • Process of assessment (knowing what to do). • Practical knowledge (knowing how to do). • Differences in use of language and terminology. • Depth of understanding of the client \ behaviour varies. • The need to link assessment information collected, the function / formulation and the intervention.

8. Understanding The Function Of Behaviour: A Practice Guide Resilience through capacity building David Doyle and Brett Owens

9. Who is this guide for? • This guide is for staff of Government and Non-government organisations whose role is to attempt to understand a clients challenging behaviour. These staff include psychologists, community workers, and other regional behaviour intervention workers.

10. What is the practice guide? • A clear presentation of the process of developing an understanding of the function of a clients challenging behaviour. • Guidelines for developing an overall clinical formulation around the clients behaviour. • A clear explanation of how to conduct each step of the process. Including: • Definitions and explanations • Tips and cautions • Guidance in the analysis of information.

11. What is the purpose of the practice guide? • Two key outcomes of implementing this practice guide are: • 1)a comprehensive assessment of the person engaging in the challenging behaviour.  Ultimately the assessment hypothesises reasons why the person is engaging in challenging behaviour in order to meet his/her needs. • 2)a Behaviour Intervention Plan (BIP)/ Multi-Element Support Plan (MESP).  These aim to decrease the client’s reliance on challenging behaviour.

12. Why is the guide needed? • Not everyone enters this field knowing how to assess behaviour. People also have different levels of experience, confidence and support. • There are many job types and disciplines – with no common skill set. • Some poor practice can be perpetuated via peer advice eg use of indiscriminate and sole use of the M.A.S. in assessing client behaviour. • Informed assessments improve: • The effectiveness of interventions. • The client’s image in the staffs perception via explanation of their behaviour.

13. Who is it pitched at? • The information is pitched at people ranging from novice staff to those who have had moderate experience in conducting behavioural assessments. • If you use this guide in an early attempt at this kind of assessment, please utilise support to do so. • Mentoring, peer support, and supervision are important source of this support.

14. What does the guide cover? • How to develop a lifestyle and environment review (LER) • Incident Prevention and Response Plan (IPRP) • Gathering information for the assessment. • How to deduce the hypotheses for the function\s of the • behaviour? • How that function\s fit into a larger formulation of the client and their context as a whole? • How to use this function and formulation  to develop recommendations into a MESP?

15. How to use this technology? • This guide is produced in html (internet) format. • It will work inside a web browser. • It will be available on CD, via the web and downloadable to your own CD. • You can follow the guide sequentially to gain knowledge about the process of developing a functional understanding of challenging behaviour and you can also branch off to gain more details about the practicalities and pitfalls of implementing this methodology.

16. Advantages of the guide. • Fills the gap between policy and literature. • Creates a framework for clinicians to use. • Has both process and procedural information. • Attempts to explain why each step is included. • Easy to navigate and understand. • Can be used with parents and service providers to explain what you are doing. • The guide can be used as a supervision, collaboration or educational tool. • It will be free of charge and reproducible. • Will be updated regularly.