The NDIS Commission Has Released a New Practice Guide on Behaviour Support Assessment & FBAs
A practice guide on behaviour support assessment, including functional behaviour assessment (FBA), is now out. Here’s who it’s for, why it exists, and what it’s really about.
The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission has today published a new practice guide: Behaviour Support Assessment, including Functional Behaviour Assessment.
This is a significant one for anyone in the behaviour support space, so we wanted to give you a plain overview first. What it is, who it’s aimed at, why the Commission has put it out, and what sits at the centre of it. We’ll save the section-by-section detail for future posts, where we’ll work through the parts that matter most for day-to-day practice.
Who is this guide for
The guide is written for registered providers of specialist behaviour support and for NDIS behaviour support practitioners working with participants. If you carry out behaviour support assessments or develop behaviour support plans, it’s speaking directly to you.
It’s also useful reading for anyone who supports a person with disability or delivers NDIS supports more broadly. Families, support workers and implementing providers all have a role in a good assessment, and the guide is clear that quality assessment is a shared effort rather than something that happens in isolation.
Why the Commission created it
The honest answer is quality. The Commission routinely reviews the quality of behaviour support plans, and its Behaviour Support Plan Quality Snapshot 2025 found that the average plan still sits in the “underdeveloped” range. They found that most plans clear the minimum bar to make some difference, but they don’t yet reflect best practice.
The Commission’s view is that you can’t fix the plan without first fixing what the plan is built on. A behaviour support plan is only as good as the assessment behind it. If the assessment is thin, or the function of a behaviour is misunderstood, the strategies that follow will miss the mark no matter how well they’re written. This guide is the Commission’s attempt to lift quality at the source.
The guide sets out to do three things: spell out what’s expected of providers and practitioners under the NDIS Act and Rules, line practice up with the quality standards, and improve both the assessments themselves and the plans that grow out of them. Running through all of it is a clear link to the reduction and elimination of regulated restrictive practices, because higher-quality assessment and planning are associated with less reliance on restrictive practices over time.
What the guide is, and what it isn’t
It helps to be clear on this early. The guide is not a how-to manual. It doesn’t teach you step by step how to run an assessment, and it doesn’t prescribe which tools to use. The Commission is explicit that practitioners are expected to keep their own skills current and to draw on professional judgement.
What it does instead is set out expectations. It describes what a good behaviour support assessment looks like, the principles it should be built on, and the standard the Commission expects to see. It’s meant to be read alongside the PBS Capability Framework, not in place of it.
The main focus
The assessment is the foundation, and a good assessment is about far more than the behaviour itself.
The guide frames behaviour support assessment as a human rights and values-led process. The FBA is one component of it, but it sits inside a wider, holistic picture. That means looking at the biological, psychological, social and environmental factors in a person’s life, understanding their strengths and circumstances, and building a shared formulation of why a behaviour is happening rather than simply cataloguing what it looks like.
Quality of life is named as the primary goal. The point of the work isn’t to suppress behaviour, it’s to understand a person well enough to improve their life, with their own views and preferences at the centre. The guide leans heavily on assessment being person-centred, evidence-informed, collaborative, and grounded in the person’s rights. From there, the function you identify should connect logically to the strategies you recommend, including any plan to reduce and eliminate restrictive practices.
For those of us already working to a positive behaviour support framework, none of this is a reversal. It’s a clear restatement of where the bar sits, and a push to make sure assessment practice consistently meets it.
A few things worth flagging now
Without going into detail, it’s worth noting that the guide covers some contemporary ground that practitioners will want to look at closely. It addresses neurodiversity-affirming practice, and is direct that features of a person’s disability or processing style should never be treated as behaviours to change. It builds in trauma-informed and culturally responsive expectations. It also, for the first time in this kind of document, addresses the use of artificial intelligence in assessment and planning and sets out clear limits on privacy and personal information.
Each of these deserves more than a passing mention, which is exactly why we’ll be coming back to them.
What this means for you, and what’s next
If you’re a practitioner or provider, the first practical step is simple: read all 44 pages of the guide alongside the PBS Capability Framework. It’s a good moment to look honestly at your own assessment process and ask whether it would stand up against what the Commission has now set out in writing.
Over the coming posts, we’ll break the guide down section by section, starting with the areas that have the biggest impact on day-to-day practice and on participant outcomes. If there’s a part you’d particularly like us to tackle first, let us know.
If anything in this overview raises questions for your team or your own practice, feel free to get in touch. We’re always happy to talk it through.
From the Insight PBS team to yours :)
Resources
NDIS Commission - Behaviour Support Assessment Practice Guide
NDIS Commission — Apply to become an NDIS behaviour support practitioner
Positive Behaviour Support Capability Framework: ndiscommission.gov.au/pbscapabilityframework
Read more of our blog articles here
Want to work with us? Check out our careers page.
Refer to Insight Positive Behaviour Support here.
Follow us on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X) and TikTok!
Want to discuss or have any questions about Positive Behaviour Support ? Feel free to contact us or request a callback.
Links
🔗 Follow Insight Positive Behaviour Support
📚 Learn more: