Make change happen in people's lives - use positive behaviour support
Positive behaviour support approaches have become established as the preferred approach when working with people with learning disabilities who exhibit behaviours described as challenging.
This is now reflected in a significant body of authoritative guidance, including the British Psychological Society’s Guidelines (Baileral 2004), and the Joint Guidelines of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Psychological Society and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (2007).
The strengths and successes of positive behaviour support approaches provide the reason for the increasing support for their use. They are fundamentally rooted in person centred values, aiming to enhance community presence, increasing personal skills and competence and placing emphasis on respect for the individual being supported.
They also use quality of life improvements for the person, both as an intervention and as an outcome measure.
Reducing the use of restrictive practices
Around half of all people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour are subject to physical interventions.
The right policies and practice, and high quality training to increase staff skills and confidence and reduce injuries, is therefore critical. Much has been achieved by BILD’s work in this area over the last 10 years through the BILD Code of Practice and Policy Framework and our Physical Interventions Accreditation Scheme >
BILD also works with organisations in building training and development networks that give constant positive behaviour support, rather than just responding to incidents with physical intervention.
This is vital for people who may experience difficulties in communicating or managing their emotions and use behaviour as a way to express themselves.
BILD's work in this area
We have set out our Positive Behaviour Support Mission to challenge the misuse of restrictive practices including the use of seclusion, time out and mechanical restraint when supporting people whose behaviour organisations find challenging. If you'd like to show your support for this approach, please sign up to it using the 'signup' email address on the Mission page >
BILD has a number of key PBS publications, among them: the Third Edition of the 'BILD Code of Practice for the use and reduction of restrictive physical intervention' which sees a major revision of this key publication, and 'Reducing the use of restrictive practices with people who have intellectual disabilities' by Professor David Allen. Find out more about BILD's PBS publications >
We have also launched a new PBS journal, the International Journal of Positive Behavioural Support. Find out more about this journal >
We run a series of events designed to spread good practice in this area, including our annual Positive Behaviour Support Conference each May, the most important event about PBS in the UK each year. Find out more about BILD's PBS events here >
Each year we award the BILD Positive Behaviour Leadership Awards for Innovative Practice, recognising good practice in the field of positive behaviour support. Among the 2012 winners were Linda Hume and colleagues from NHS Fife and Andy Lees from St Anne's Community Services in Leeds. More about the 2012 winners and how to make nominations for the 2013 awards here >
We also campaign against the use of seclusion, and the misuse of ‘time out’ and mechanical restraint.
In all our work in this area, our aim is achieving change in the lives of vulnerable people and their families.
