SCA and Complex Behaviour – Overview
Working with service users with complex behaviours can be challenging, so understanding what complex behaviours are, and how Social Care Alba (SCA) care staff should address them, is crucial to providing safe and effective care.
What are complex behaviours?
Complex behaviours are those that are difficult to manage and predict, and can be disruptive. In a care-at-home setting, you might typically think of aggressive behaviours, such as verbal abuse or threats of violence towards others. However, complex behaviours commonly involve self-harming and unintentional actions such as wandering off, or repetitive behaviours that may lead to harm of some kind.
All of these behaviours require careful handling by staff members, and at SCA, our Complex Behaviour Policy and Procedure is there to ensure that our care staff understand their responsibilities and follow the relevant codes of practice as required. However, it’s also about enabling staff to understand the needs of service users who display these behaviours and to ensure that the use of de-escalation preserves the respect and dignity of service users at all times, using the least restrictive option.
Causes and triggers around complex behaviour can be complex themselves
In order to be able to address complex behaviours effectively, we need to be mindful – not only of how they might manifest, but of the situation around the person displaying them. For example, if a person is exhibiting aggressive behaviour because they have dementia, our response may differ from someone without dementia, who exhibited similar behaviours. This raises an important point about complex behaviours and how we address them … there is no ‘one size fits all’. Everyone is unique, and our life experiences, our state of mental or physical health, or disability can affect our behaviours in many ways. For this reason, care workers must deal with each incident on its own merit.
Dealing with an incident
There is a procedure that should be followed, and this can be found in our Complex Behaviour Policy and Procedure document. However, regardless of the situation, the intention must always be to avoid harm – both to the service user and anyone else in the immediate vicinity.
Further, always assess the situation and decide what your goals are in dealing with it. This assessment should include an understanding of what caused the behaviour and how it manifests itself in each individual case. This will help you plan your response accordingly and make sure that you have all of the information necessary (eg., possible triggers, typical responses) to approach the situation competently in the future.
Following assessment of the situation and determining the best course of action, communicate clearly with others in close proximity, to let them know how they can support you during this process, or to ensure their safety (eg., ‘Leave the room please’). A calm, confident approach is key, as this sends signals to the service user that you understand, and know how to support them in that moment.
In line with SCA’s Complex Behaviour Policy and Procedure, your manager will arrange a post-incident review to discuss what happened, any learning from it, and any course of action to be taken as a result.
Training and Learning Resources
At SCA, we provide in-depth training to new personal assistants in:
- Work in a person-centred way
- Communication
- Privacy and dignity
- Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disabilities
- Adult support and protection
However, there are also opportunities for further learning where needed. Staff can find resources on :
- De-escalation techniques
- Trigger arenas
- Risk assessment and personal planning
- Conditions that can cause complex behaviours
Our training, additional resources and our commitment to ongoing support all seek to help equip and empower our staff to feel competent in complex behaviour situations. If you are ever in any doubt about how to handle a situation, speak to your manager, and we will do what we can to support you further.
