Do we need a Positive Behaviour Support Academy for England?

A short post, and in the spirit of making a new proposal as widely available as possible to the intellectual disability community in the UK (and England specifically).

I’m not claiming this as my idea at all, but there is a nice synergy with my recent discussion piece about the idea of Improving Access to Positive Behaviour Support if you want to take a look at that too.

It is also important to say that the proposal document has been put together quickly by a volunteer group and it does not represent the views of a particular organisation. All we are trying to do is to get the idea out there along with some thoughts we had that flesh out the idea to a reasonable level of detail. If the idea is taken up (commissioned?) by someone with power and access to funding, I think the idea of a PBS academy should belong to the ID/LD community in England and not be seen as a proposal from someone or some group in particular. Someone else might well lead the next stages of development of the Academy if it takes off.

Fingers crossed that something will happen!

There is plenty of detail that could be added to this PBS Academy proposal, and I hope that there is the chance for it to be shaped by feedback over time (because that’ll mean it might happen!) and for consultation with all stakeholders. The proposal is shared in its imperfect state in the hope it is useful and helps to provide a focus for a PART of the solution to the Winterbourne View nightmare.

You can download a copy of the PBS Academy paper here.

In the interests of transparency, the main authors of the paper were myself and Prof David Allen but mostly because we agreed to take on that practical role. Direct feedback and ideas for the current version of the paper were also contributed by Peter Kinsey (CMG), Viv Cooper, (CbF), Prof Peter McGill (Tizard Centre), and Bob Tindall (United Response). Many other people also contributed directly or indirectly through conversations over the past few months, but they are too numerous to mention. I hope that this clarifies that the paper is an idea articulated by a number of dedicated people, but it isn’t owned by them.