Positive behaviour support focuses on understanding why a person is behaving they way they are (Behaviour of Concern) in this way and working out how the person’s needs can be met without using challenging behaviours.

Positive behaviour support might help by:

• Helping the person be understood through learning communication strategies
• Changing aspects of the person’s environment, i.e. in their home to make them feel at ease
• Improving the person’s lifestyle to add community connections, and ensure they have access to activities that they find fun
• Ensuring the person has meaningful and positive relationships with others
• Providing an encouraging, fun and understanding support environment

At a minimum, any behaviour support plan that contains a regulated restrictive practice needs to be reviewed every 12 months or earlier if the participant’s circumstances change.

NDIS behaviour support practitioners are practitioners the Commissioner of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission considers suitable. Specialist behaviour support providers are required to notify the NDIS Commission about their behaviour support practitioners. Practitioners are considered provisionally suitable pending their assessment against the Positive Behaviour Support Capability Framework.

There are five categories of regulated restrictive practices that are monitored by the NDIS Commission. These are the following:

• Seclusion – the sole confinement of a person with disability in a room or a physical space at any hour of the day or night where voluntary exit is prevented, or not facilitated, or it is implied that voluntary exit is not permitted.
• Chemical restraint – the use of medication or chemical substance for the primary purpose of influencing a person’s behaviour. It does not include the use of medication prescribed by a medical practitioner for the treatment of, or to enable treatment of, a diagnosed mental disorder, a physical illness or a physical condition.
• Mechanical restraint – the use of a device to prevent, restrict, or subdue a person’s movement for the primary purpose of influencing a person’s behaviour but does not include the use of devices for therapeutic or non-behavioural purposes.
• Physical restraint – the use or action of physical force to prevent, restrict or subdue movement of a person’s body, or part of their body, for the primary purpose of influencing their behaviour. Physical restraint does not include the use of a hands-on technique in a reflexive way to guide or redirect a person away from potential harm/injury, consistent with what could reasonably be considered the exercise of care towards a person.
• Environmental restraint – which restrict a person’s free access to all parts of their environment, including items or activities.

The Regulated Restrictive Practices Guide outlines NDIS providers’ obligations when implementing regulated restrictive practices.