“I Look at Their Rights First”: Strategies Used by Australian Behaviour Support Practitioners’ to Protect and Uphold the Rights of People with Disabilities

Abstract

Objectives

Positive behaviour support (PBS) is a values-based framework for supporting people with disabilities who display challenging behaviour. In Australia, behaviour support practitioners are now responsible for delivering PBS services to people with disabilities in ways that protect and uphold their human rights. However, no research to date has examined the specific strategies that Australian behaviour support practitioners employ in their professional practice to protect and uphold the rights of the people they serve.

Methods

We used an open-ended online survey to explore strategies that 98 Australian behaviour support practitioners reported using to respect and uphold the rights of the people they support. Their responses were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results

Six overarching themes were identified following the coding of participant responses to the open-ended questions. These included the following: using a person-centred approach, facilitating frequent two-way communication with the person and their support team, implementing a range of personalised behaviour support strategies, establishing organisational policies and procedures that protect and uphold rights, educating others about rights, and adopting a holistic approach to behaviour support that focuses on improving quality of life outcomes.

Conclusions

Findings underscore the importance of including people with disabilities and their families as partners across all phases of the behaviour support process to ensure positive behaviour support strategies are safe, effective, and acceptable, and the goals and outcomes are meaningful. We use the findings of this study to propose a RIGHTS-based model of PBS that might be used to guide practitioners to deliver services in ways that are consistent with the principles described in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.