Support streams

Specialist Behaviour Support

Understanding behaviour. Building safer conditions.

Rights-based, neurodivergent-affirming Positive Behaviour Support.

Behaviour makes sense in context. The objective is not to suppress autistic expression or make the person easier for systems to manage. It is to improve quality of life, strengthen communication, identify the conditions contributing to distress, and support the person and their team to create safer and more sustainable environments.

We explore communication, unmet needs, sensory and environmental conditions, health, pain, relationships, trauma, demands and previous support experiences before deciding what intervention is appropriate.

What this support involves

Specialist assessment and functional behaviour formulation
Behaviour Support planning grounded in rights, communication, sensory safety, autonomy and environmental fit
Consultation, implementation guidance and team education
Monitoring, review and reduction of restrictive practices over time

Success within a carefully adapted environment does not prove that support is no longer needed. It may be the clearest evidence that the environment and supports are working.

How this support is governed

The NDIS Commission's Specialist Behaviour Support standards require suitable practitioners, supervision, participant involvement, functional behaviour assessment, tailored and proactive plans, implementation guidance, monitoring, review, and a commitment to reducing and eliminating restrictive practices.

You are involved throughout - in the assessment, in what the plan says, and in how it is implemented. A plan is developed with the person, not applied to them.

What this is, and is not

A current Behaviour Support Plan does not by itself make a person's attendance at a session Specialist Behaviour Support. Plan implementation is also distinct from plan authorship, functional assessment and specialist practitioner work. Where Neurodivergent Empowered has an agreed implementation role, that role is scoped explicitly with the person and their team.

The practice, explained from both sides

You Make Sense is the person and family companion: a rights-based guide to distress, communication and support that helps.

Behaviour Makes Sense is the professional companion: rights-based Positive Behaviour Support beyond compliance, including assessment, formulation, planning, implementation, review and restrictive-practice reduction.

Both books are optional educational resources. They do not replace an individual assessment, Behaviour Support Plan, consent, participant involvement, current legal requirements or the person's own account.

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Practitioner suitability

Tanya Hicks was deemed suitable by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to work as an NDIS Behaviour Support Practitioner on 23 April 2026. Practitioner ID: P1362818.

The Commission assesses practitioner suitability; this should not be described as authorisation or as endorsement of a capability level.

Specialist Behaviour Support is a distinct, individually assessed service. Whether it is the right support for a person, and how it is delivered, is determined with them through assessment and support-fit review.

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