Why Positive Behaviour Support Is a Culture, Not a Plan
When you go into a clinic, a classroom, or another place that helps people, you might hear people talk about Positive Behaviour Support (PBS). They often use this term today in health care and care delivery. PBS is there to give people help. It is like a guide you can use, with steps to follow. You can also use it with video telehealth services. PBS tells you what to do when someone acts in ways that can be hard to deal with. It is a simple plan for health care delivery.
But here's what I want to say. PBS can do well only when people stop seeing it as just a 'plan.' We all need to see how important it is to have a strong therapeutic alliance. It needs to be part of the culture.
For people who work in health care, teaching, and telemental health, this change is not just about using new words for mental health conditions. It asks us to look again at how we see other people and their lives. We also have to think about the places that shape how we act and feel.
The Roots of Positive Behaviour Support
PBS did not start overnight. It took many years of hard work as well as study in the area of behavioral health and behaviour science. A big part of this work was looking at patient satisfaction. People used what they know from Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). To this, they added ideas that see everyone as special.
The main goal of PBS was easy to see. It wanted to move away from strict rules and ways that feel firm. PBS tried to help people by trying to understand them, not just by trying to take control.
Instead of trying to fix how people act right away, PBS looks at why they do it first. People often show some needs this way, especially in cases of substance abuse. It is important to know what kind of place or things around help keep these habits going. This can be about getting behavioral health and health services.
This switch from reacting to learning is what sets PBS apart from common ways to manage behavior. PBS works ahead of time, before any problem starts. It helps people feel safe when they share sensitive information. This is important for good mental health treatment. PBS is kind and puts respect and people first.
When a Framework Becomes a Mindset
The best PBS practitioners know that real success is not only about having steps to follow. You can make a behaviour support plan that uses several strategies and offers financial support or rewards for good choices. Then, you share this plan and the ideas in digital health with the team. But if the team does not feel connected to the values in the digital health plan, the plan will not work.
PBS is a way of thinking, not a document.
It is about making a way for everyone to think together. People like family, therapists, and teachers need to know that behaviour is one way people try to talk about what they feel or need. The best thing is to be steady, kind, and to show respect. This matters more than trying to get a fast fix.
In one NDIS-supported program in Western Sydney, you see change in many things that happen day to day. A support worker takes time to learn what makes a child feel okay. A teacher waits and does not shout. A therapist gives cheers for small steps by kids, not just talking about what did not go well.
These do not list the steps of a plan. They show what the culture is about.
Culture Means Everyone Owns It
When you use Positive Behaviour Support as only a plan for clinical care, it often sits in a folder. Mental health providers will use it when they need help. People read it in team meetings. After something happens, they read it again. Later, someone might make changes to it.
When something turns into a culture, you hear it in what people say. You see it in the things they do. Their hopes from others also reveal it. This is just like how people want secure websites that come from an official government organization in the digital world now.
For people in charge of healthcare, the thing that matters most is who controls how things are done. In a team where healthcare professionals use PBS, it is important for them to feel that they own the process.
- Everyone cares about the person's well-being. This includes the senior clinicians and the casual staff. All of them have a part in this.
- Feedback does not only go from the top down. It comes from all people. It helps everyone think about what has happened.
- Success means people join in positive things like online therapy and feel good about life. It is not only about stopping some behaviours.
The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission talks about this a lot in practice standards. PBS is not just there to lower worrying behaviours. It helps people join in things that matter. It helps them feel included. It also lets people have more control over their lives.
That can happen only when what people think and feel goes beyond just having rules or making plans.
Leadership That Models PBS Values
Culture starts with the people who lead. A leader that has PBS values such as patience, respect, and being curious will set an example. Then, everyone in the organisation will follow that way.
In behaviour support teams, leaders should know that staff can make mistakes or feel tired from work. When those in charge do not give harsh rules for these things, it helps make the right kind of place for clients at PBS. In this place, the people feel supported, think on things, and aim to grow.
A senior behaviour practitioner in New South Wales said, "If we want families to trust us and if we want children to feel safe, then our workplace has to use the same ideas."
In day-to-day work, you use PBS not only for giving services. You also use it for hiring, managing people, and helping staff grow. Staff learn how to follow the plans, and they also get to know why these plans matter and what values are behind them.
Beyond Compliance: The Human Element
It’s easy for people to think they have to use PBS because of NDIS rules. This is all to do with healthcare services and government funding. You may feel like PBS is just about papers, reviews, reports, and checks. But, if you see PBS as just a process, it can stop feeling like it is about people.
PBS is all about people and how we come together. It is about having a place where you feel like you belong. Sometimes, a company may try just to meet goals or follow rules. When that happens, it can forget what matters most. This can include making sure the people have access to official websites and telehealth platforms. There should be places where all people feel like they are listened to and get help.
The best PBS organisations do more than just follow the rules. They use time and effort to think about what they do. People in these groups also care for their staff and work with families. They learn about things like compulsive disorder, too. These organisations see PBS as something that keeps changing. This culture grows during every meeting and every talk they have.
The Ripple Effect: Families and Communities
A good PBS culture gives help in more places than just therapy rooms. People feel the help at home and in the community too.
Parents who get to know PBS say it makes their home feel much better. They stop always pointing out problems. They start looking at what may lead to issues and get ready for them. Parents make simple routines and notice things that their kids do right. This makes the home feel warmer. People feel closer, and the bond with each other gets strong.
At school, teachers that use PBS principles often see there are not as many behavior issues with students. The students also work better together. This is something that will spread quickly. When one person is steady and shows care, it makes the people near them feel good too.
Healthcare leaders need to know that when PBS becomes a part of the way people act and feel each day, it has effects that reach far past the clinic. It changes how people live their lives, not just how they feel when they go in for care.
Challenges in Building a PBS Culture
Culture change is hard. It needs people to trust each other. You will need some time for it. Strong leaders must keep trying so it can work.
Common challenges include:
- Staff turnover can make things not steady. You have to train new people all the time when staff always change.
- Resistance to change shows up often. This can be when a team is used to old ways and wants a lot of control over how things go.
- Limited supervision means some people in the field might see the PBS rules in their own way each time.
The answer is not to add more forms to fill out. What helps is getting ongoing support from mentors and leaders that people see often. Meeting with your group to talk about what you did, learning together, and seeing when small wins get noticed can help PBS values stay strong for a long time.
From Intervention to Inclusion
The main goal of PBS is to help people feel like they belong. It is much like what happens at the NIH Clinical Center. PBS is here to make sure that people enjoy better and happier lives where they live. This is not simply work you do at a clinic. It is that way we all want to live with each other.
When therapy groups, schools, and families all use the same PBS words, mental healthcare gets easier. Problems begin to go away. Everyone works together like a team, not as boss and helper. Children feel like people we help, not problems we fix.
And that is where PBS is more than a tool to help support change in what people do. For many, it is a mindset that sees inclusion as important. You see how respect matters. You start to look at people as people, not just as actions.
Lessons for Healthcare Leaders
If Positive Behaviour Support is going to work well, leaders should not see it as something that never changes. It should be allowed to grow and become a real part of day-to-day work and life. Health professionals need to be involved in this process. This means:
- Leading by example – Always show PBS values in what you do. Do this with teams inside and with others outside, in different situations, every time.
- Investing in learning – Give teams the chance to get training not only in which plans to use, but also in how to feel for others, pay close attention, and think back on things.
- Creating psychological safety – Make sure staff feel safe to talk about the hard stuff without being worried.
- Celebrating progress – Notice and cheer for the small, everyday actions that match your values.
- Embedding family voice – See families as people who help make plans, not just people to get help.
Culture grows because of the things people do each day. It does not get strong just from catchy words. When you practice something all the time, it will feel normal.
Conclusion: The Real Measure of Success
In the end, Positive Behaviour Support is not only about lowering the number of incidents or making plans that look nice on paper. You can see it when there are more smiles, smoother times moving between things to do, and when families feel happy and sure of themselves. At the workplace, you see it when the team feels supported and kids feel safe to be themselves. This comes out even more with the rise of telehealth, as people can get support from far away. What happens now is backed up by findings from systematic review studies.
A culture of PBS can help us change how we look at people in healthcare delivery. We start to see people not as problems to solve. Instead, we see them as people we want to understand.
For healthcare leaders, the most important goal is to build systems that put compassionate care first, instead of just focusing on rules. When Positive Behaviour Support is used as a part of how people do things every day, it’s not only a plan. It goes deeper. It can help us see better clinical outcomes. It also leads to real change and can feel like a strong movement in how people work.
Comments
0 comment