Assessing the impact of the UK Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) Academy: An internet survey

Background: The Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) Academy is a collective of organisations and individuals in the UK working together to promote PBS as a framework for working with children and adults with intellectual disabilities who are at risk of behaviour that challenges. This paper presents a stakeholder perspective of the activities of the PBS Academy as part of an overall evaluation and impact study of its work to date.

Methods and materials: The study used an internet-based survey designed by the authors and members of the PBS Academy.

Results: Over one third of participants rated the activities of the PBS Academy as being done 'well' or 'very well' and the resources developed by the Academy were rated as 'useful' or 'very useful' by over 70% of participants for all but one resource. The most frequently used resources were the PBS Competence Framework and the International Journal of Positive Behavioural Support (IJPBS) 2013 special edition articles by Gore et al and Hastings et al. The PBS Academy was rated as having done less well in bringing stakeholders together to share practice.

Conclusions: The results suggest that there is a role for a national body for PBS in the UK, with a focus on facilitation and enablement, especially in relation to workforce and individual professional and service development.