Commissioners and Care Managers

Commissioners of services for people with learning disabilities who are risk of behaviour that challenges, need to understand Positive Behavioural Support in order to ensure the purchasing of good quality PBS provision.

These resources have been designed to enable commissioners and care managers to write clear specifications for contracting PBS services and to identify/review services to ensure they meet best practice standards. They can be used individually or together as part of the commissioning process.

The three resources for commissioner/care managers are:

•  A Positive Behavioural Support Specification for Contracts provides sample wording for a contract specification for a service designed to incorporate PBS

• A Guide to Identifying Positive Behavioural Support Best Practice For Commissioners and Care Managers provides information to help identify whether a service is providing best practice PBS for the individuals it supports. It can be used to assess the suitability of a prospective service as well as to review current service provision. This guide contains descriptions of best practice along with examples of things you might see in a service, questions to ask and things to look at.

• Key Performance Indicator Tool to Monitor PBS Service Provision This tool can be used to monitor how effective a service is in delivering the contract specification in PBS. It is an excel spreadsheet that services can complete and return at specified intervals defined by the commissioner/care manager. Some of the boxes contain formulas, which automatically calculate stated numbers into percentages. As part of the Creative Commons license, individuals and organisations can adapt the spreadsheet to meet local service need as long as the original source is acknowledged.

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