When you work in a care environment and are caring for vulnerable people, often you will have to deal with many types of behaviours that can be challenging. Challenging behaviours include (but are not limited to):
Refusal to cooperate with carers – for example refusing food and drink, or prescribed medication
Physical violence and lashing out in an attempt to cause harm
Self harm – deliberately attempting to harm themselves
Verbal Assaults such as shouting and swearing
When vulnerable people display these types of behaviour, it is an attempt to communicate their distress. For example, a person with dementia may not be able to tell you that they are uncomfortable, so they will try to communicate in another way. A child that suffers from a learning disability may also do the same thing.
There are many things that a person might be responding to when they exhibit these behaviours – for example, a person who has sensory issues may become distressed by the way something feels, noises that are too loud and lights that are too bright.
It might be that they have experienced a trauma and are suffering from a mental illness, or they could have symptoms from medication that they are on that causes them to exhibit these behaviours.
Dealing with these behaviours correctly is essential, both for the care and safety of the person involved and for yourself – training courses like this challenging behaviour training course tidaltraining.co.uk/learning-disability-training/challenging-behaviour-training-breakaway-techniques are an important part of working in a caring role.