What Is Positive Behaviour Support
A Practical Guide for NDIS Participants and Families
BMe Supports | Updated 12 October 2026
Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) helps people receive support that makes everyday life safer, more accessible and more meaningful. It starts with understanding the person, their needs and the reasons behind behaviours that create a risk of harm.
For families searching for NDIS behaviour support, it can be difficult to know what the service involves. This guide explains behaviour support assessments, plans and practical strategies, and how to take the next step with BMe Supports.
What is Positive Behaviour Support
Positive Behaviour Support is an approach grounded in evidence, human rights and the person’s own priorities. It combines understanding behaviour with changes to everyday support, opportunities to learn useful skills and guidance for the people providing care.
The aim is to improve quality of life. That might mean being able to ask for a break, enjoy an outing, feel safer at home or take part in a valued activity with less distress.
Learn more through the NDIS Commission’s introduction to behaviour support.
When might someone need behaviour support
Specialist behaviour support may be helpful when behaviours create risks, cause injury or significantly limit daily life. Examples can include self-injury, aggression, property damage or leaving a safe area in circumstances that place the person at risk.
Context matters. A diagnosis alone does not explain a behaviour, and occasional frustration does not automatically mean someone needs specialist behaviour support.
The NDIA’s behaviour support guideline explains how behaviour support can help participants and their support networks.
At BMe Supports, we encourage families to describe what is happening in everyday language. You do not need to arrive with a clinical explanation.
Understanding behaviour and unmet needs
Behaviour can give us information about what a person is experiencing. Pain, fatigue, communication barriers, distress and environments that feel overwhelming can all be relevant.
Rather than assuming someone is “being difficult”, an assessment asks what is happening around them and what support they need.
An illustrative example is a young person who repeatedly leaves a busy group activity. The team might explore noise, the pace of instructions, access to breaks and whether the person actually wants to participate. Possible changes could include a smaller group or a reliable way to ask for time out. The right response depends on assessment.
Neuro affirming behaviour support
At BMe Supports, our neuro-affirming approach respects each person’s communication, identity and ways of experiencing the world.
We focus on safety, access and goals that matter to the person. Harmless stimming, different eye-contact preferences or needing time alone should not become targets simply because they make other people uncomfortable.
People need accessible opportunities to express their preferences, including through gestures, pictures, communication devices or support from someone they trust. Families contribute valuable knowledge while the person remains central to decisions.
Aspect’s explanation of Positive Behaviour Support offers further reading on autism and respectful support.
What is a Functional Behaviour Assessment
A Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA) explores where and when behaviour occurs, what happens around it and its likely purpose or function. It helps the team choose strategies that fit the situation.
Information may come from interviews, observations, records and behaviour data. One method is ABC recording:
Antecedent: what happened immediately before.
Behaviour: what the person did, described clearly.
Consequence: what happened afterwards, including other people’s responses.
“Consequence” means what followed the behaviour; it does not mean punishment.
A short note such as “covered ears and left when the blender started” is more useful than a label such as “uncooperative”. It gives the team something specific to investigate.
The Victorian Department of Education’s FBA guidance explains this process in school settings. NDIS specialist assessments also need to meet the Commission’s requirements.
What goes into a behaviour support plan
A behaviour support plan turns assessment findings into practical guidance.
The NDIS Commission describes two types:
Interim Behaviour Support Plan: focuses on immediate safety, prevention and reducing harm while further assessment occurs.
Comprehensive Behaviour Support Plan: draws on assessment to guide ongoing support, environmental changes, skill development and responses to risk.
Where restrictive practices are included, a comprehensive plan must also explain how their use will be reduced and eliminated over time.
See the NDIS Commission’s guide to developing behaviour support plans.
Practical strategies in everyday life
Strategies should be chosen for the individual. Examples a practitioner might explore include:
Making transitions more predictable with a visual schedule.
Allowing extra time to process a question.
Providing an accessible way to request help or a break.
Adjusting noise, lighting or the number of people present.
Offering meaningful choices about activities and routines.
Helping supporters recognise early signs of distress.
These examples are starting points for discussion, rather than a ready-made plan. Ask your practitioner to explain why a strategy fits and how you will know whether it helps.
Working together across home and community
Behaviour support works best when the person and their team understand the plan and can use it in daily life.
Depending on the person’s needs, collaboration may involve family members, support workers, teachers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, psychologists or medical professionals. Appropriate consent and information-sharing arrangements should guide this work.
For example, a speech pathologist might help make a request for assistance easier to communicate, while an occupational therapist explores environmental access. The behaviour support practitioner brings relevant information together to inform the plan.
The NDIA’s behaviour support guideline discusses collaboration and training for supporters.
Behaviour support and restrictive practices
Restrictive practices limit a person’s rights or freedom. The NDIS Commission regulates five types: seclusion, chemical restraint, mechanical restraint, physical restraint and environmental restraint.
They are subject to safeguards and should only be used as a last resort to prevent harm. Many behaviour support plans do not include restrictive practices.
Including a practice in a plan does not itself authorise its use. NDIS implementing providers must meet applicable state or territory authorisation requirements, registration obligations and reporting requirements.
Learn more through the NDIS Commission’s rules for implementing providers.
Can NDIS funding pay for behaviour support
The NDIS can fund behaviour support when it meets the applicable funding criteria and the person’s disability-related needs.
Check your plan’s wording, available funding and any stated support restrictions before booking. Having funding for another service does not automatically mean it can be used for specialist behaviour support.
Your support coordinator, plan manager or NDIA contact can help clarify your funding arrangements.
Useful official resources include the NDIS guide to support budgets and the NDIA’s behaviour support guideline.
Choosing a behaviour support practitioner
Under the NDIS, specialist behaviour support providers must be registered, and plans must be developed by practitioners the NDIS Commission considers suitable. This also applies to plans without restrictive practices.
Read the Commission’s requirements for specialist providers and practitioners.
Questions you can ask include:
How will you involve me in my assessment and plan?
How will you accommodate my communication needs?
What support will my family or workers receive?
How will we review whether the strategies are helping?
How will you protect my rights and choices?
Positive Behaviour Support with BMe Supports
BMe Supports offers individualised, neuro-affirming Positive Behaviour Support and Functional Behaviour Assessments. Our approach considers the person’s communication, everyday environments and priorities when developing practical support strategies.
If you are looking for behaviour support in Geelong or the Bannockburn region, or want to discuss telehealth behaviour support elsewhere in Australia, contact our team to explore suitability and availability.
Explore BMe Supports’ behaviour support services or make a referral.
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