Speakers

Compassion, Wellbeing and the Future of PBS

Positive Behaviour Support continues to evolve, but its central purpose remains the same: to improve people’s lives. This seminar will explore the current direction of PBS and ask how we can keep compassion, wellbeing and human flourishing at the centre of practice, even within complex and pressured support systems.
Paddy will consider compassion as both a practical skill and an organisational responsibility. The session will explore how compassionate practice can help us better understand behaviour, reduce restrictive responses and create environments where people are more likely to feel safe, valued and understood. It will also reflect on some of the criticisms of PBS, including the risk that it can become overly focused on process, compliance or behaviour reduction when the wider person and their quality of life are not kept in view.
The seminar will introduce wellbeing as a useful anchor for contemporary PBS, including how the PERMA model can help services think more clearly about positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Looking ahead, Paddy will also consider how developments in training, including AI-supported simulations, virtual tutor conversations, contextualised learning and multilingual access, may help staff build confidence and apply PBS more thoughtfully in real-world settings.

Speaker Bio

Paddy Behan is Co-Founder and Director of PBS UK & PBS Matters. He began his career as a support worker and has since worked across frontline practice, service management, consultancy and organisational development in Positive Behaviour Support. Paddy has supported children and adults with learning disabilities, autistic people and people whose behaviour has been described as challenging across a wide range of settings. His work is shaped by a deep commitment to the values of PBS, the importance of compassion in everyday support, and the belief that services should help people flourish rather than simply manage behaviour.