An initial evaluation of direct care staff resilience workshops in intellectual disabilities services

Abstract

The emotional responses to challenging behaviour of direct care staff who support people with intellectual disabilities is thought to be an important mediating factor within the stress experienced by staff and a potential maintaining factor in challenging behaviour. A brief workshop to improve direct care staff resilience was developed and initially evaluated using a measure of emotional reaction to challenging behaviour and a measure of burnout. It was found that negative emotional reactions to challenging behaviour significantly reduced following the workshop, but a measure of burnout did not. This may indicate the usefulness of this intervention with direct care staff in managing their emotional reactions to challenging behaviour. However, further development and evaluation of such interventions with direct care staff is required to explore ways of impacting upon burnout and managing the display of challenging behaviour.