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British Journal of Social Work 34/6 © BASW Trading Ltd 2004 all rights reserved
Identifying the Extent of Challenging Behaviour in Adult Learning Disability Services
Carol Hayden was Director of the Social Services Research and Information Unit (SSRIU) at the University of Portsmouth at the time of this research. She has a particular interest in the area of managing behaviour. Work on adult learning disability is ongoing; in addition she is researching the issue of the social work response to parents with learning disabilities. She now works in the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies (ICJS).
Martin Stevens is Research Officer for Hampshire Social Services Department and has researched widely across different areas of social work practice and service delivery. He has collaborated with the SSRIU on a number of projects. He is a former member of staff from a service for adults with learning disabilities.
Correspondence to Carol Hayden, ICJS, St. George’s Building, 141 High Street, Portsmouth PO1 2HY, UK. E-mail: carol.hayden{at}port.ac.uk
Summary
This article presents one part of the findings of an ongoing study that set out to investigate and explain the extent of challenging behaviour in twenty-one social service run day and residential services in one large county authority in England. This part of the study reports on staff perceptions of problematic behaviour from service users. It uses staff reports of levels of problematic behaviour as indicative of potentially challenging behaviour. The study uses an adapted version of an established instrument, the BPI (Behaviour Problems Inventory), as a survey tool completed by staff for all service users in a one-month period (January 2000). The findings of this exercise are based on 1,390 service users, near to a census at the time of the survey. The study shows ‘non-compliance’ to be the most problematic and prevalent behaviour from the point of view of staff. Overall the research illustrates a split between the majority of service users who present staff with problematic behaviour in a relatively minor to moderate way and a small group of individuals (less than 2 per cent) who present much more extreme behaviour. Brief reference is made to other data collected in the study when it helps in the interpretation of the behaviour patterns identified by the BPI.
Keywords: challenging behaviour, learning disability (adults)
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