An Evaluation of Staff Training in Positive Behaviour Support

AIMS: Challenging behaviour is common for many people with learning disabilities and has a negative impact on the lives of these individuals. It is linked to decreased levels of support from staff, reduced opportunities for inclusion in the community, use of restrictive interven-tions, and placement breakdown. Equipping staff with the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to support people with challenging behaviour in a positive, respectful and effec-tive way has proved a challenge for care agencies. Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) has been shown to be effective in minimising challenging behaviour. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of training managers of social care services in PBS. METHOD: A longitudinal training programme in PBS was delivered to 50 managers of community-based services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. The training pro-gramme lasted a year; data were collected pre and post training, and at 6 month follow-up. A non-randomised control group design was used. RESULTS: Data demonstrated significant reduction in challenging behaviour which was sustained over time. However, there was no change in quality of life for service users, and very limited changes in staff support to ser-vice users. CONCLUSION: This study has demonstrated that training managers in PBS can have a positive impact on challenging behaviour in people with learning disabilities. There are a number of aspects to the results which are unexpected and these are discussed with ref-erence to the relevant literature.

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