“Wherever possible, a person should be able to read their plan and feel proud of what it says about them. They should see their courage and persistence…” 

My first experience of reading Behaviour Support Plans started as a Support Worker in 2012. I was fresh out of university and excited to be working in an industry I cared deeply about – one where there was so much opportunity to support meaningful change.

From time to time, Behaviour Support Practitioners would come out to see the support team I was a part of, usually only once a year. They would often leave us with a lengthy, wordy Behaviour Support Plan to follow, and I would find myself trying to make sense of the strategies in front of me while also holding onto what I knew from actually spending time with the people I supported.

Some plans genuinely helped me understand what to do and why. Others contained a whole heap of information but were difficult to follow and hard to use. Too often, the person the plan was written about seemed to get lost somewhere in the middle of all the words.

When I began writing Behaviour Support Plans as a Behaviour Support Practitioner in 2015, I came to understand that a plan can be clinically sound and still not be particularly helpful.

I have read and written plans that were thorough, polished and probably looked impressive on paper. But when I reflect honestly, they did not always consider the people who needed to use them every day. Those experiences shaped me as a Practitioner, and they are a big part of why the way we approach Behaviour Support at Able2 feels so aligned with what I believe good practice should look like.

At Able2, we believe a Behaviour Support Plan should help people know and understand the person it is written about, rather than simply describe their behaviour.

It should capture who they are, what matters to them, how they communicate, who they trust and the experiences that have shaped them. It should also reflect the insight of families, support workers, teachers and others who know them well. Often, it is the small things people have noticed over time that make the greatest difference.

When someone reads a plan written by an Able2 Practitioner, we want the person at its centre to be recognisable. They should not be reduced to their hardest moments or written about as a problem to be solved.

The plan should acknowledge a person doing their best in circumstances that may have been overwhelming, painful or difficult. It should also recognise the people around them who have continued to show up, learn, adapt and try again. A good plan brings all of this together as a reflection of effort, care and possibility.

Wherever possible, the person should be able to read their plan and feel proud of what it says about them. They should see their courage, persistence, preferences and the ways they have communicated what they need, even when that communication has been difficult for others to understand.

The people involved in their support should also recognise their own contribution. The process should feel collaborative, not like something written about people from a distance.

Of course, seeing the person clearly is only part of what makes a plan useful. It also needs to work in real life.

A Functional Behaviour Assessment will give us valuable insight into why something is happening and what is likely to help, but that understanding only matters if it can be translated into everyday support. If a plan is too complicated, too long or too difficult to navigate, even the best strategies can end up sitting unread in a folder.

When families and support workers can quickly find what they need and feel confident putting it into practice, support becomes more consistent. This is where change happens: in the way distress is understood, the way someone responds in a difficult moment, and the way everyday support becomes calmer, safer and more connected.

That is why clear language and thoughtful design are central to our work at Able2. Not because the work itself is simple, but because people should not have to fight their way through a document to understand how to support someone well.

The feedback that means the most to us is often the simplest:

“You saw them.”

Or:

“You get me.”

To us, that is what a good Behaviour Support Plan should do. It should honour the person, value the people around them and be useful enough to make a real difference.

Emma Storey, Behaviour Support Practitioner and Able2 Clinical Lead