It has been six months since my last confession
blog. I have had things to say, but mainly I’ve had my head down working with
colleagues on several projects and getting some grants submitted! In the meantime,
I have made many of the measures/questionnaires we developed for research and
practice available for free download on this blog. Check them out on the left
hand menu if you’re interested.
A PBS Coalition
On to this new blog. Having, like
many, experienced significant frustration with the (lack of) clear action on
the post-Winterbourne agenda, like-minded colleagues have been beavering away
on some practical resources. This group built on the informal connections
between PBS folks across the UK who produced a special issue of the
International Journal of PBS at the end of 2013.
In the IJPBS special issue, we
produced what were designed as two key building blocks to inform challenging behaviour
services/supports and PBS in particular. We started by describing an underlying
framework (or model/theory?) that we think is a useful summary of why
challenging behaviours may occur, especially in those with more severe
intellectual disability. This is explained in an earlier blog:
That framework paper makes it clear
the breadth that is required from any interventions for challenging behaviour,
and also shows why behavioural theory and intervention approaches need to be a
part of PBS. With the theory stuff in mind, and drawing on international
definitions of PBS, we also included a paper in the IJPBS special issue on defining
PBS. This Gore et al. 10 point definition is now widely used in practice, and
is informing resources that other people are producing. For example, BILD have
a great new film explaining PBS for people with learning disability that
incorporates this definition. You can take a look at the film here:
http://www.bild.org.uk/our-services/positive-behaviour-support/capbs/introduction-to-pbs/
The reference to the definition paper is:
http://www.bild.org.uk/our-services/positive-behaviour-support/capbs/introduction-to-pbs/
The reference to the definition paper is:
Gore, N. J., McGill, P.,
Toogood, S., Allen, D., Hughes, J. C., Baker, P., Hastings, R. P., Noone, S.
J., & Denne, L. (2013). Definition and scope of Positive Behavioural
Support. International Journal of Positive
Behavioural Support, 3 (2), 14-23.
[for a copy of this paper,
find my email address at Warwick Uni; Nick, Peter M, Dave Allen, Peter B at the
Tizard Centre; Carl Hughes at Bangor]
A third paper in the
IJPBS special issue was a conceptual paper describing how one might go about
clarifying what competencies people need to be able to deliver high quality PBS.
This was not possible without an underlying clear “model” of challenging
behaviour, and clarity on the definition of PBS. We hadn’t developed a
competence framework at this point, but we knew that one was needed. More on
the PBS competence framework below.
The collection of people
involved with the IJPBS special issue also reached out to other PBS people and
to campaigning and service provider organisations and developed some proposals
for a PBS “Academy” for England.
This idea has not gone away, but it
didn’t quite catch the imagination (!) of civil servants and others involved in
responding to Winterbourne. So, as yet there is no PBS Academy. However, some
of the ideas in our outline proposal we felt were needed desperately. In
particular, some guide to the human resource and competence for delivering high
quality PBS was needed. Even though we thought we had defined PBS in a way that
made clear what it is and what it is not, this was not settling the argument
when individuals or services said “we’re doing PBS” when this declaration was
in question.
A detailed document called the PBS
competence (or competencies?) framework (see below) was then born. The informal
group of people who had been working together to this point thought that a name
was needed for the group. For better or worse, we chose PBS Coalition. There is
nothing secretive about the group, but we don’t have a formal organisational
structure, governance arrangements, or funding. Instead, for the time-being the
group works together to develop much-needed resources and seeks to make these available
free for anyone to use. In the longer term, we are still committed to exploring
the idea of an organisation something like the proposed PBS Academy or at least that the core functions we proposed for an Academy are available somewhere at a high level of quality. We’ll see.
Rather than keep arguing for an idea, we have been working away to produce
useful stuff. We have engaged in action.
Positive Behavioural Support Competence Framework
This document has been launched today
and you can download a copy for free by following this link:
Please note that the framework is designed
at present for use by professionals primarily. The competencies needed for
three different roles/levels within PBS services are described in great detail.
Both what you need to know, and what you need to be able to do, are described.
The document is long, and the detail is deliberate. This is essentially an “all
you need to know about” document. It can be used by individuals or services to
say “what skills do we have, and where are the gaps”. Equally, any training
provider’s offer could be checked against this framework – what is this trainer
offering in terms of competencies as outcomes, what is missing, what else should
we ask for, and from where else could we get the remainder? I am sure that you
will be able to think of multiple other ways that the document can be used in
practice.
Many people gave their time for free
to get this framework written, and it was a process of consensus and editing to
produce something that we think is pretty good and that is coherent. Revisions may
be needed in future, but this is a good starting point.
You can also read on the PBS Coalition’s
blog about Phase 2 of the PBS competence framework project. The idea is not to
produce practical guides for various stakeholders based on/consistent with the underlying
clarity of the detailed competence framework. These additional resources are
unlikely to be as long as the first one! We plan to produce stuff for people
with learning disability, family carers, support staff, service providers, and
commissioners of services.
