Behaviour Bits

About Behaviour Bits

Welcome to Behaviour Bits: mini masterclasses in positive behaviour support strategies and related subjects behaviour with your host, Specialist Behaviour Director Jenn Colechin. Join us as Jenn interviews a diverse range of specialists, delving into their unique fields, strategies, and areas of expertise.

Publisher

Jenn Colechin

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Sept 2024

Latest episode

13 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   13 Oct 2026

   2609 026 Walking through Fire: The Evolution of the Practitioner (Max MacKenzie)

   Max MacKenzie, founder of Resilience Enterprises, discusses the unwritten rules, conflicts, survival strategies, and personal growth necessary to build resilience and help shape a long career in behaviour support. Max introduces the concept of ‘invisible rules’, the unspoken assumptions within a culture or service that can lead to someone’s behaviour being labelled as concerning when it is really just unfamiliarity with a local norm. Drawing on examples from remote and First Nations communities, this idea extends to behaviour support practitioners, who often carry hidden expectations from their own training, including the assumption that doing accurate, ethical work will always be rewarded by the systems they work within. The conversation turns to what happens when practitioners are sidelined, investigated or dismissed for raising uncomfortable truths, and why this is often a system’s survival strategy rather than a personal failing. Being let go as the allocated practitioner, complained about, or investigated for raising accurate, uncomfortable findings is often more a reflection of that system rather than a reflection of poor practice. Their discussion takes on the metaphor of walking through fire: how to recognise smoke signals, what elements are essential to surviving it, and how to adapt and grow from it. For those managing complex, high stakes support within services under funding pressure, this conversation offers language for recognising organisational dynamics that can otherwise feel personal, and practical ways to build growth, nurture resilience, and build a long, sustainable career in behaviour support. About the Guest: Max MacKenzie is the founder, director and clinical lead of Resilience Enterprises in Cairns, Queensland, a service specialising in behaviour support and education for people who do not fit neatly into service systems. Max is an accredited mental health, disability and clinical social worker, a specialist behaviour support practitioner and a family therapist, and speaks openly about his lived experience as a neurodivergent and transgender man. Complex FBA & BSP Workshop - Melbourne CBD Thursday 26 November 2026. Six interactive hours building confidence with complex presentations: real de-identified cases, functional hypotheses, planning, risk and restrictive practices. Templates you will use, plus a certificate mapped to the NDIS Behaviour Support Capability Framework. Register now at https://specialistbehaviour.com/event/complex-functional-behaviour-assessment-fba-behaviour-support-planning-bsp-workshop/ (https://specialistbehaviour.com/event/complex-functional-behaviour-assessment-fba-behaviour-support-planning-bsp-workshop/) Looking for practical, flexible learning that goes beyond the podcast? The All Access Pass gives you unlimited entry to all of our self-paced online courses, early access to new content, exclusive member discounts, and our ever-growing library of downloadable resources, templates, and clinical tools. I t's all grounded in evidence-based, person-centred practice, designed to support you at your own pace, in real-world ways. Visit https://specialistbehaviour.com/all-access-pass/ Questions, comments, feedback? Email us at info@specialistbehaviour.com

2. 

   15 Sept 2026

   025 Getting started in PBS (Zac Demopoulos)

   Zac Demopoulos, a specialist behaviour support practitioner and Chief Operating Officer at Step 2 Allied Health, joins the podcast to discuss what new positive behaviour support practitioners need to know when starting out in the NDIS. The conversation explores the steep learning curve facing new practitioners, from managing uncertainty and imposter syndrome to understanding that positive behaviour support within the NDIS operates under a specific legislative and regulatory context. Zac reflects on how even highly experienced professionals can feel like beginners again, and why psychological safety within a team is essential for people to raise concerns before they reach crisis point. Zac and Jenn discuss what good practice looks like in action, including genuine informed consent, biopsychosocial assessment beyond only ABC data, and working from principled processes. The episode includes advice on maintaining a regular cadence of support, keeping caseloads balanced, and assigning each recommendation to one accountable person. For those new to the profession of behaviour support practitioner or considering a change, this episode offers a grounded look at what sustains good practice over time: clear frameworks, honest communication, realistic expectations of uncertainty, and systems of support that prevent burnout and protect the quality of the work being delivered. 00:00 Introduction 00:39 Zac's Path into Behaviour Support 09:46 PBS Within an NDIS Context 12:51 Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt 21:59 The Power of Informed Consent 30:34 Building a Clinical Framework 50:50 Principle Over Prescription 1:00:24 Cadence of Support and Sustainable Practice 1:07:05 Closing Thoughts About the Guest Zac Demopoulos is a social worker and specialist behaviour support practitioner who has spent his career building and leading behaviour support teams across the disability sector. He entered the field via out-of-home care before moving into NDIS behaviour support roughly seven years ago, and is currently Chief Operating Officer at Step 2 Allied Health in Geelong. Key Takeaways New practitioners need to become comfortable with uncertainty and not having all the answers, since human behaviour and the systems around it involve too many moving parts for certainty. Imposter syndrome is common even among experienced practitioners, and often shows up as self-doubt that persists despite clear evidence of good work. Genuine informed consent, explaining plainly why someone has been referred, builds trust more effectively than dancing around a difficult topic. Good assessment needs to be biopsychosocial rather than a narrow episodic ABC focus, taking in health, history and broader context. Working from principles rather than a rigid prescriptive process leads to simpler solutions, illustrated by an example where simply asking a person what they wanted resolved a supposed behaviour of concern. A regular cadence of support, consistent touchpoints with every person on a caseload, prevents people falling through the gaps and protects practitioners from becoming purely reactive to crises. Resources Mentioned Right Direction Spectrum of Participation PBSP model by Dr Alinka Fisher Ross Greene's collaborative and proactive solutions approach Google Scholar NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission practice guides Looking for practical, flexible learning that goes beyond the podcast? The All Access Pass gives you unlimited entry to all of our self-paced online courses, early access to new content, exclusive member discounts, and our ever-growing library of downloadable resources, templates, and clinical tools. I t's all grounded in evidence-based, person-centred practice, designed to support you at your own...

3. 

   26 Aug 2026

   Where Psychology Meets Positive Behaviour Support (Dr Zoe Perry)

   Clinical psychologist and specialist behaviour support practitioner Dr Zoe Perry unpacks the often murky distinction between psychology and positive behaviour support, and what genuine interdisciplinary collaboration looks like in practice. The conversation covers the concept of “the missing middle”- people who are too complex for mainstream services, yet not eligible for public mental health or disability supports, and how this gap influences and shapes service delivery. The discussion moves into practical territory, examining where scope of practice and scope of role diverge, whether positive behaviour support should be considered therapy, and how formulation skills can sharpen rather than blur professional boundaries. Real world examples illustrate how psychologists and behaviour support practitioners can work in a genuinely interdisciplinary way, including practical tools like shared formulation and simple memoranda of understanding, and strategies for advocating to the NDIS when clients need both disciplines working together rather than one substituting for the other. Anyone working alongside psychologists and behaviour support practitioners in disability and mental health settings will recognise the tension between staying within scope and responding to genuine unmet need. This conversation offers concrete language and tools for navigating that tension while keeping the person at the centre of a coordinated, evidence-informed interdisciplinary support team. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:03 A Career in Complex Behaviour 06:16 The Missing Middle 10:36 Psychology vs Behaviour Support 15:21 Is PBS Therapy? 22:33 Psychologically Informed PBS 36:52 Multidisciplinary vs Interdisciplinary Teams 43:06 Practical Strategies for Collaboration 53:55 Advocating for NDIS Funding 1:01:19 Closing Thoughts About the Guest Dr Zoe Perry is a clinical psychologist and advanced specialist behaviour support practitioner. She is the founder and director of Journey Health Solutions, a multidisciplinary practice of behaviour support practitioners, psychologists and occupational therapists based in Melbourne. Key Takeaways The missing middle describes clients too complex for public mental health or mainstream disability services yet not eligible for adequate private support, a gap that predates the NDIS Positive behaviour support is not therapy, but practitioners can sometimes do short, contained, person led work if they have relevant training, supervision and a clear rationale Around 30 percent of behaviour support practitioners are psychologists, which further complicates any attempt to draw a hard line between the two disciplines Learning formulation skills does not expand a practitioner's scope, it clarifies it by helping identify which parts of a presentation belong to behaviour support and which need another discipline The NDIS previously suggested clients could only access psychology or behaviour support, not both, which created confusion and led some services to swap one for the other inappropriately Simple tools such as a shared table outlining each team member's role, or a brief memorandum of understanding, can prevent duplication and scope creep in interdisciplinary teams Resources Mentioned NDIS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme Journey Health Solutions British Psychological Society formulation guidance Zones of Regulation Looking for practical, flexible learning that goes beyond the podcast? The All Access Pass gives you unlimited entry to all of our self-paced online courses, early access to new content, exclusive member discounts, and our ever-growing library of downloadable resources, templates, and clinical tools. I t's all...

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Spotify

5.0 / 5

25 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 41 / 100

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Quality

61

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0

YouTube

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Engagement

51

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