In her role as a Positive Behaviouralist at Lilibet Manor, Jemma Banks works with our residents who have complex needs arising from diagnoses including Dementia, Learning Disabilities and Mental Health.
These needs can result in behaviours which other people may find challenging, but as Jemma explains, there is always a reason behind this and her training in Psychology helps her to identify what these reasons are.
“Challenging behaviour is, more often than not, caused by a trigger(s), so it is about noticing these and putting in procedures to deal with them at the earliest possible stage before the behaviour escalates.
“In the case of an elderly person, for example, it may be that they suffer with arthritis in their knees, so if we know this it could be something as simple as finding out if they are prescribed any pain relief and administering this before supporting them to get up.
Jemma has a degree in Psychology and before joining Lilibet Manor in March 2022, she worked for over four years with a company that specialized in complex care, supporting people with Dementia, Autism, Learning Disabilities, Mental Health and Brain Injury.
Her journey in managing complex behaviour began whilst supporting individuals to learn skills using Applied Behaviour Analysis, which is a therapy based on the science of learning and behaviour.
She further enhanced her knowledge and understanding of complex behaviours when she became a PROACT-SCIPr-UK Instructor in 2020. This means she can train other people in how to manage challenging behaviour in a person-centred way.
This is Jemma’s first role working as a Positive Behaviouralist with a full nursing team in a residential care setting.
She says: “I am really enjoying it. I am getting to know the residents and staff and ultimately, it is about understanding the how and why of any behaviour and you can only do this by digging deeper into the background of each individual resident.
“Once we can do this, then it’s easier to put strategies in place which will be beneficial to the residents and also our staff as well.”
