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  3. Resolving distress

Resolving distress

You’ll be less frustrated

Imagine not being understood by anyone around you. Would you shout? Throw things? Run? Withdraw? At the very least you’d feel distressed.

Dimensions (including Discovery) supported 24 people out of long-stay hospital or crisis in 2024

Find out how Jack gained control of his life through an ISF.
Find out how Isabelle gained control over her life, reducing the need to hurt herself.
Find out how Gillian explored new horizons, reducing her isolation and tendency to hurt herself and others.
Find out how Paul rebuilt relationships with his family.
Find out how Richard reduced his support needs, eliminated restraint, and gain control over his life.

Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) – Reducing Distress and Challenging Behaviour

At Discovery, we know that most behaviours described as “challenging” come from people feeling distressed. Our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) team helps create environments where these behaviours are no longer needed—helping people live full, ordinary lives.

What is PBS?

PBS is a person-centred, clinically directed approach to understanding and reducing distress. Our team uses evidence-based strategies to improve wellbeing and independence.

Specialist Support and Rapid Response

By reducing distress and avoiding restrictive practices, PBS helps prevent costly interventions such as long-stay hospital admissions following a section.

Why we choose PBS – Improving Quality of Life

At Discovery, we believe in providing support that enhances every individual’s quality of life. This means giving equal importance to respect, dignity, and choice, alongside promoting good health, safety, and proactive care.

Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) reduces distressed behaviour by understanding the person, delivering effective support, and adapting their environment where needed. It’s a person-centred, clinically directed approach that focuses on compassion and prevention rather than reactive care.

How We Deliver PBS

• PBS principles are embedded in our support worker training
• Formal PBS plans are created by our clinical team based on assessed needs
• Early involvement in service design allows us to develop personalised PBS plans, identifying behaviour triggers and compassionate strategies to address them.

Through PBS, we help people live happier, more independent lives while reducing the need for restrictive practices and costly interventions.

Who is involved?

Three groups of experts work together to create our PBS plans which deliver safe support to those who need it:

A range of protocols, panels and strategies support our work in this area.

Positive Behaviour Support Assessments – Understanding Distress

At Discovery, our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) assessments use a detailed functional assessment process to understand why an individual may display distressed or challenging behaviour. This insight is the foundation for creating effective, compassionate support.

From Assessment to Support Plan

The assessment identifies individual needs and desired outcomes, forming the basis of a detailed behaviour support plan tailored to the person. This plan helps reduce distress, improve wellbeing, and promote independence.

How We Assess

Our Behaviour Support Team gathers information through:

  • Direct observation and spending time with the person
  • Interviews with parents, carers, and professionals
  • Reviewing documents and analysing past incidents
  • Assessing the person’s environment and current support

Our team is trained in a range of nationally recognised and specialist assessment tools to ensure accuracy and quality.

Positive Behaviour Support Plans

The behaviour support plan aims to increase quality of life and minimise behaviours of distress by teaching the person new skills and changing the environment that surrounds them.

Plans are agreed by all the key people in the person’s life and in line with the PBS competency framework. They include:

  • description of behaviours of distress
  • possible reasons and triggers for behaviours of distress
  • proactive strategies – to avoid behaviours of distress by meeting a person’s needs
  • active strategies – to prevent behaviours from escalating, focusing on de-escalation, redirection, and distraction
  • reactive strategies – guidance on managing a challenging situation to minimise the immediate risk and keep everyone safe.
  • recovery strategies – to support recovery following an incident.

Monitoring and Review

Goals identified as part of the behaviour support programme are set as outcomes with the person we support, in line with their overarching person-centred support plan.

We then review and monitor behaviour support plans for:

  • the frequency and severity of any behaviours of distress
  • quality of life, including learning new skills
  • the use of psychotropic medication (medication that changes behaviour or mood.)
  • use of physical intervention
  • how accurately the plan is being used.

Our Approach to Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)

Our approach is grounded in years of experience and evidence-based research into best practices in Positive Behaviour Support. We follow the PBS Competence Framework and NICE guidelines to ensure the highest standards of care and support.

We work in partnership with local authorities and the NHS, complying with all relevant legislation to deliver safe, effective, and person-centred services.

Modern PBS is very different from traditional Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). We prioritise choice, dignity, and respect, alongside safety, health promotion, and positive support. These values are at the heart of everything we do.

PBS or ABA?

Getting It Right from the Start: Our Complex Needs Protocol

The most important factor in delivering successful support is getting it right from the very beginning. That’s why we use our Complex Needs Protocol—a proven framework built on years of experience and learning.

This protocol captures everything we’ve discovered when support has worked well—and, just as importantly, what we’ve learned when things haven’t gone as planned. It identifies the essential elements that must be in place before we begin providing support, along with clear red lines we will never cross. These boundaries exist because experience shows that crossing them compromises the quality and effectiveness of support.

Our approach ensures that every plan is safe, person-centred, and tailored to complex needs, giving you the best possible outcome from day one.

I am beyond happy, Jake is using more words, behaviours of distress have reduced drastically and I am perfectly happy Jake is living his best life ever.

Family Member *Not his real name or image

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