What PBS Actually Means: What Makes a Good Behaviour Support Plan | PBS Practice Notes #02

I once looked through a folder of resources another practitioner had made for a young person. There was a social story in there, and a lot of careful work. Someone had put real hours into it.

He wasn’t interested in any of it.

Then he was asked to help build the social story himself, starting with the main character. Same skills underneath, same goal. This time he wanted to read it, because part of it was his.

(This is a composite. Details are changed and blended, like every example in these notes.)

Two families can both say “we have a behaviour plan” and mean very different things. For one, it’s a document sitting in the kitchen drawer. For the other, it’s the reason school mornings stopped being a fight.

What positive behaviour support is, in one breath

Positive behaviour support works out what a behaviour is doing for a person. Then it builds the skills, supports and day around them so they need that behaviour less.

The goal is a better life. Quieter often comes with it. When quieter becomes the goal, plans go wrong in ways I can usually predict.

Behaviour is communication

Every behaviour has a job. Usually it’s getting something or getting away from something, and sometimes it’s about feeling okay again. We call that job the function, and finding it is the real clinical work.

A young person who throws their work across the room isn’t being defiant as a personality trait. They might be getting out of a task that’s too hard. They might have learnt it’s the fastest way to get an adult to come over. Same behaviour, two functions, two very different plans. Until you know the function you’re guessing, and families can tell when a plan was a guess.

What makes a good behaviour support plan

At minimum:

• Understanding the person first. Strengths, how they communicate, sensory needs, history, what a good day looks like.
• A functional assessment. Built from observation and data, with opinions kept out of it.
• Skills and environment. Teaching a better way to meet the same need, and changing the setup so that way actually works.
• Support for the adults who run it. A parent at 7pm, a casual teacher on a Friday, a support worker on their first shift.
• The young person’s voice. Remember the folder? The resources were fine. Nobody had asked him.

The test I hold my own plans to

If the adults can’t run it on a bad day, it isn’t finished. Most plans get tested in a kitchen at seven at night, by a tired parent, in the hardest 10 minutes of the day. That’s who I write for. The auditor can read it too.

Behaviour support plan quality in Australia: what the NDIS Commission found

In its 2026 Behaviour Support Plan Quality Snapshot, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission reviewed 129 plans. 42% were weak and 32% were underdeveloped, while 20% were good and 6% were superior.

One number moved the right way. 83% of plans now show the person was consulted, up from 32% in 2022. We’re getting better at asking people what they think. We’ve still got work to do on plans that get used.

I’m sharing those figures because they’re the backdrop to this whole series. Plan quality is a system problem, and putting my working in public is how I keep my own bar high.

What PBS isn’t

It isn’t a list of consequences for bad days, and it isn’t paperwork that only comes out for audits. If a plan’s main job is making a young person easier to manage, something’s gone wrong.

Next issue

Issue 03 goes deeper on the part that changed things in that folder story: young people helping write their own support materials. I call it the young person as author. It’s v0.1, still being tested, and I’ll show you exactly where it’s up to.

PBS Practice Notes is written by Yos, a positive behaviour support practitioner working with young people aged 12 to 20 in Western Sydney, South West Sydney and the Illawarra. Nobody I support appears in these notes. Examples are composites, and I label them.

Frequently asked questions

Is positive behaviour support only for the NDIS?

No. In Australia, though, most funded behaviour support happens through the NDIS, and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission sets the standards for it.

Does a behaviour support plan mean restrictive practices?

No. If a plan includes any restrictive practice, extra rules, oversight and a plan to reduce it apply. Good PBS works to make restrictions unnecessary.