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Aggression and Behaviour Support
Behaviour Support for aggression looks at why the aggression is happening, not just the moment it happens. Aggression is a response with a function: pain, frustration, sensory overload, or an unmet need the person can’t put into words. Our practitioners find that cause and work with you to address it.
When someone you care for becomes aggressive, it’s frightening and it’s exhausting, and you’ve been doing your best in hard moments, often without much support yourself.
Most responses deal only with the moment, through restraint, removal, or consequences. These can settle a single incident, but they don’t reach the reason the aggression started. Behaviour Support works the other way around. Before we respond to the aggression, we work out what’s driving it.
Parents, carers, and support workers
For support coordinators and plan managers
Our Behaviour Support team works with families, schools and support teams when aggression has become part of daily life, and with the person at the centre of it. Sessions run in clinic, at home, at school and in the community across NSW and Tasmania, so strategies are built in the settings where the aggression shows up.
How do I fund Behaviour Support?
Behaviour Support at Optimum Health Solutions is usually funded through the NDIS.
NDIS participants fund it from Capacity Building. Newer PACE plans list it as Behaviour Support, and older plans list it as Improved Relationships.
Private sessions are available too, with no referral needed, and you will get a clear picture of the costs before you book.
If it is not in your plan yet, your support coordinator can ask for it at the next plan review.
If you are not sure which funding applies to you, call us on 1800 678 647 or email hello@opt.net.au. We will sort it out before your first appointment.
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Why aggression happens
01
Pain or physical discomfort
A person who can’t easily say that they’re hurting may show it through behaviour instead. Headaches, dental pain, gut problems, sore joints. When the body hurts and the words aren’t there, behaviour becomes the message.
02
Frustration and communication barriers
When a person can’t get across what they need, what they want, or what’s wrong, the pressure builds. For someone with communication difficulties, aggression is sometimes the most reliable way they’ve found to get a response from the people around them.
03
Sensory overload
Loud rooms, bright lights, crowds, unexpected touch. When sensory input passes what a person can take in, the body moves into fight mode, reacting to surroundings that feel like a threat.
04
Environmental triggers
Unpredictable routines, unfamiliar people, transitions with no warning, demands that sit above what a person can manage that day. The setting often builds the conditions for aggression well before the incident itself.
05
Learned patterns
When aggression has reliably ended an overwhelming demand, brought attention, or stopped a situation, the person learns that it works. That’s the nervous system doing what nervous systems do: returning to what brought relief.
This is how our team approaches aggression: as behaviour with one or more functions that can be understood and worked with. Find the function, and you can work on the pattern.
05
One team, many possible causes.
A behaviour that looks like defiance might trace back to pain a Physiotherapist can investigate, a language difficulty a Speech Pathologist can uncover, or sensory overload an Occupational Therapist can assess. Our Behaviour Support practitioners work alongside all of them, plus Exercise Physiologists, Podiatrists, and Dietitians, and coordinate so the plan covers every driver. You tell your story once.
How Behaviour Support works with aggression
The types of aggression we work with. Verbal aggression covers shouting, swearing, and threats. Physical aggression towards others takes in hitting, kicking, biting, and throwing things. Property destruction, breaking objects and punching walls, is often overlooked because no one is hurt. All three share one thing. They have a function. Our job is to find it.
Functional behaviour assessment. We start by watching and listening, across settings, times of day, and people. We record what happens before, during, and after each episode, and we talk with parents, carers, teachers, and support workers. The picture that builds up shows when aggression happens, with whom, and why. This isn’t one session with a checklist.
Prevention first. Once the triggers are clear, we adjust the environment before aggression occurs: softening sensory input, building transition warnings into the routine, easing demands during high-stress periods. And when aggression carries a message, the person needs a clearer way to send it: visual supports, key word signing, communication devices, or a set way to ask for a break. When someone can say “stop”, “help”, or “I need space” and be understood, the pull towards aggression can ease.
De-escalation and reducing restrictive practices.
We help everyone in the person’s circle read the early signs, respond the same way, and use calming steps before a moment reaches crisis. Where restrictive practices are already in place, the plan sets out a clear path to reduce and, over time, remove them, as the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission requires. Crisis management asks how to get through this moment safely. Behaviour Support asks why it’s happening and how to make it less likely next time. A good plan does both.
Your plan:
Your behaviour support plan sets out what the aggression and aggressive behaviours are doing to the person and their quality of life. We then outline the prevention strategies and include the de-escalation steps for hard moments, and for those who support the participant, we outline who does what across every setting.
We also offer education to go everyone in the person’s support network so the response is the same at home, at school, and in the community.
Behaviour support through the NDIS
NDIS. Behaviour Support is funded under Capacity Building. In newer NDIS (PACE) plans it sits in a dedicated Behaviour Support budget; older plans fund it under Improved Relationships. If your plan doesn’t include it yet, your support coordinator can request it at your next plan review. We work with plan-managed, agency-managed, and self-managed participants.
NDIS
Referrals
14 clinics across NSW & Tasmania
Email us
hello@opt.net.au
Speak to us
1800 678 647
Get in Touch.
Where we offer Behaviour Support
Common questions about aggression
How does behaviour support help with aggression?
Why does my child become aggressive?
What is the difference between Behaviour Support and anger management?
Can Behaviour Support reduce the need for restrictive practices?
Does NDIS fund behaviour support for aggression?
What are the different types of aggression?
Does Optimum Health Solutions provide behaviour support for adults with aggression?
Reviewed by Rachel Hardcastle
OPTIMUM HEALTH SOLUTIONS
Rachel has worked in Behaviour Support for over 16 years, where her experience has included complex and forensic work. Rachel’s approach is entirely person-centred, meaning her practice starts and ends with the person, building support around them. Rachel works clinically and leads the development of the Behaviour Support team at Optimum Health Solutions, supporting practitioners to grow and do their best work with the people they see.
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