Adopting a Strengths-Based Approach to Behaviour Support

When it comes to behaviour support in our settings, there is sometimes a tendency to overly focus on the ‘negatives’. We think about what people might struggle with, and we look for ways to solve the issues and challenges they face. In other words, we often unwittingly adopt a deficit-based, rather than strengths-based, perspective.

Of course, as compassionate, committed professionals, we always want what is best for those in our care. We are well-versed in identifying challenges, and using this information to determine the most appropriate support measures to meet individuals’ needs.

However, focusing on things we believe a person may struggle to do or access can sometimes result in us overlooking their existing competencies and abilities, and not involving them directly in our decisions around support. And when we feel that decision-making lies solely with us, we may also inadvertently lose sight of the ‘bigger picture’ and the role that individuals play in their own future.

What is a strengths-based approach?

Adopting a strengths-based approach moves the focus away from what an individual cannot do, and instead encourages us to look holistically at the whole person: their abilities, their strengths and skills, their experiences, their aspirations, and their innate potential. It allows us to support them to grow and thrive through collaboratively developing attributes of agency, resilience and resourcefulness.

One way to think of a strengths-based approach is that it is the way we provide support, rather than an end goal per se, encompassing everything that we do to make sure that children, young people, and adults are enabled to fulfil their potential.

A strengths-based approach always involves the individual in decision-making and encourages a unified perspective that includes everyone involved in their care.  It means we support people to acknowledge their own circumstances and how these might impact their behaviour.

Together, with guidance from us and others in their network, we can ascertain accurate starting points and explore possible next steps that will take them closer to where they want to be.

A mindset shift from deficit-based to strengths-based

This change in perspective from deficit-based to strengths-based may require a mindset shift for some practitioners. For example, with behaviour support, we tend to focus on areas that individuals require help to access or develop; we analyse and deconstruct the ‘problem’. Based on our own experience and knowledge, we then put support mechanisms in place to address what we perceive to be a deficit around behaviour.

While naturally well intended, this approach can sometimes stimulate feelings of stress and deficiency in the individual, compounding anxiety around the very area we are hoping to develop or strengthen. It can remove any sense of agency and autonomy, resulting in a feeling of being ‘done to’.

While ongoing behaviour support and interventions may, of course, be necessary and entirely appropriate, we also need to ask ourselves: is our approach balanced with this person’s circumstances? Does it align with their goals and aspirations? And how can we empower them to identify ways forward with our support?

Ultimately, a strengths-based approach is less about removing or withholding support, or ‘fixing’ a problem; it’s about using our knowledge of an individual to provide exactly the right input at exactly the right time.

Developing a strengths-based approach