Ongoing Participation in Community Teams

What:

A significant aspect of providing positive behavioral support to individuals with developmental disabilities is proactive participation in community teams.  Working together as a cohesive unit can help provide insight regarding positive behavioral support.

Why:

Teaming around an individual with challenging behaviors is important in that it helps to ensure full community membership for the person. There are several benefits to teaming which include:

• Providing a forum to proactively address issues that may arise.
• Meeting on an ongoing basis and celebrating a person’s success can help the team identify and understand what is going well and why.
• By working together in a coordinated and supportive way you are better equipped to deal with conflicts that may arise.
• Teams that meet proactively are better able to create and update individual support plans.
• Well run teams are effective in finding resources, appropriate training, and expertise to blend mental health services within existing DD supports.
• Working proactively helps assure continued participation in supported community life.

How:

When forming a team include those people important to the individual.  They have a history and a story to share with others.  As teams shift over time, having those key people to relay those stories to others is wonderful and necessary.  Teams that use a person centered framework help focus what is important to the person. Effective teams are those that include a commitment to the person, positive communication skills, and being respectful of others even if they have individual differences of opinion.

Examples of teaming and developing person-centered plans (a plan to help guide the team in supporting the individual) can be found at The Learning Community and The Center for Evidenced-Based Practice.