Contents
- What Are Behaviour Support Notes?
- Why Behaviour Support Documentation Matters
- Understanding the Behaviour Support Plan (BSP)
- Restrictive Practices — What You Must Document
- How to Document De-escalation
- Mandatory Elements of Behaviour Support Notes
- Behaviour Support Note Examples
- Using Objective Language for Behaviour
- NDIS Commission Reporting Requirements
- Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Free Behaviour Support Note Template
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Are Behaviour Support Notes?
Behaviour support notes are specialised documentation that records incidents, interventions, and progress related to a participant's behaviour support plan (BSP). They track:
- Triggers and antecedents to behaviours of concern
- De-escalation strategies used (as per BSP)
- Participant responses to interventions
- Any restrictive practices used (and authorisation)
- Progress toward behaviour support goals
- Incident reporting requirements
📌 Key Point: Behaviour support notes are legal documents. They can be reviewed by the NDIS Commission, used in court, and are essential for demonstrating compliance with restrictive practice authorisations.
Why Behaviour Support Documentation Matters
Proper behaviour support documentation is critical for:
- Participant Safety: Ensures consistent, effective interventions
- Legal Compliance: Restrictive practices must be authorised and documented
- NDIS Commission Oversight: Reportable incidents must be reported within 24 hours
- Behaviour Support Practitioners: Need detailed notes to review and adjust BSPs
- Continuity of Care: All workers need to know what strategies work
- Audit Evidence: Auditors check that BSPs are being followed
⚠️ Important: Unauthorised use of restrictive practices is a reportable incident. Failure to document can result in serious regulatory action, including registration suspension.
Understanding the Behaviour Support Plan (BSP)
A Behaviour Support Plan is a document developed by a behaviour support practitioner that outlines:
- The participant's behaviours of concern
- Triggers and antecedents
- Positive behaviour support strategies
- De-escalation techniques
- Any authorised restrictive practices
- Goals for behaviour change
Your progress notes must demonstrate that you are following the BSP and document outcomes of interventions.
Restrictive Practices — What You Must Document
The NDIS defines restrictive practices as any practice that limits a participant's rights or freedom of movement. These include:
- Chemical Restraint: Medication used to control behaviour (not for medical treatment)
- Mechanical Restraint: Devices used to restrict movement
- Physical Restraint: Using physical force to restrict movement
- Seclusion: Confining a participant alone in a room
- Environmental Restraint: Restricting access to the environment
📋 Restrictive Practice Documentation Checklist:
- ✓ Restrictive practice is authorised in the BSP
- ✓ Date, time, and duration of use documented
- ✓ Reason for use documented (triggers, escalation)
- ✓ Strategies attempted before use
- ✓ Participant response documented
- ✓ Any injuries or distress documented
- ✓ Notifications made (family, NDIS Commission)
How to Document De-escalation
De-escalation documentation should follow a clear structure:
- Trigger/Antecedent: What happened before the behaviour?
- Intervention Strategies: What strategies from the BSP were used?
- Participant Response: How did the participant respond?
- Outcome: Did the participant de-escalate? How long did it take?
- Follow-up: What happened after?
💡 Pro Tip: Document de-escalation using objective language. Instead of "participant calmed down," write: "participant returned to baseline after 10 minutes, engaged in preferred activity, deep breathing observed."
Mandatory Elements of Behaviour Support Notes
Every behaviour support note must include:
- Date and Time: When the behaviour/incident occurred
- Location: Where the behaviour occurred
- People Present: Staff, participants, witnesses
- Trigger/Antecedent: What preceded the behaviour
- Behaviour Description: Objective description of what happened
- Intervention Used: Strategies from BSP applied
- Restrictive Practices: If used, document authorisation and duration
- Participant Response: How participant reacted
- Outcome: Resolution and participant wellbeing
- Follow-up: Notifications made, next steps
- Signature: Staff member and supervisor
Behaviour Support Note Examples
❌ Non-Compliant Behaviour Note
Date: 15/03/25
Notes: Participant had a meltdown. Staff used de-escalation. Participant calmed down after a while. No incidents.
Why it fails: Subjective language ("meltdown"), vague interventions, no trigger, no outcome details, missing follow-up, no mention of BSP.
✅ Compliant Behaviour Support Note
Date: 15/03/2026, 10:30am
Location: Participant's home
People present: Participant, Support Worker John Smith
Trigger: Participant was advised that preferred support worker was unavailable for next shift.
Behaviour Description: Participant raised voice, stated "I'm angry, I want my usual worker," threw cushion across room, and paced the living area. No physical aggression toward staff.
Intervention (per BSP): Staff maintained calm tone, offered space, stated "I can see you're frustrated, I'll give you a moment," and redirected to preferred activity (music). Used positive reinforcement when participant engaged.
Restrictive Practices: None used. BSP does not authorise any restrictive practices.
Participant Response: Participant continued pacing for 5 minutes, then sat down and requested music. Deep breathing observed.
Outcome: Participant returned to baseline after approximately 10 minutes. Stated "I'm okay now." Engaged in music and conversation for remainder of shift.
Follow-up: Coordinator notified at 10:45am. Next shift to check in on participant. BSP to be reviewed for additional coping strategies.
Using Objective Language for Behaviour
When documenting behaviour, use objective, observable descriptions:
Subjective → Objective Examples:
❌ "Participant was aggressive"
✅ "Participant raised arm toward staff, made contact with staff's shoulder, and shouted 'leave me alone'"
❌ "Participant had a meltdown"
✅ "Participant cried, shouted, paced the room, and threw a cushion"
❌ "Participant was uncooperative"
✅ "Participant did not follow instructions to prepare for shower, stated 'I don't want to', and remained seated"
❌ "Participant calmed down"
✅ "Participant returned to baseline after 10 minutes, engaged in conversation, deep breathing observed"
NDIS Commission Reporting Requirements
Certain behaviour-related incidents must be reported to the NDIS Commission:
- Unauthorised restrictive practices: Must be reported within 24 hours
- Serious injury: From behaviour or restrictive practice use
- Use of restrictive practice resulting in injury
- Any death during or after restrictive practice use
Reportable incidents must be submitted through the NDIS Commission Portal. Internal documentation must be completed within 48 hours.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Subjective language: "aggressive," "meltdown," "calmed down"
- Missing BSP references: Not documenting which strategies from BSP were used
- Undocumented restrictive practices: Using restraint without documenting authorisation
- No trigger documentation: Not recording what led to the behaviour
- Missing follow-up: Not documenting next steps or notifications
- Late entries: Not completing notes within 48 hours
- No supervisor review: Behaviour notes require approval
Free Behaviour Support Note Template
NDIS Behaviour Support Note Template
Use this template for all behaviour-related documentation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NDIS BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT NOTE TEMPLATE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Date: _______________ Time: _______________ Location: _________________________________________ Support Worker: ___________________________________ BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT PLAN (BSP) REFERENCE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ BSP ID: _______________ Reviewed: _______________ TRIGGER / ANTECEDENT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ What happened before the behaviour? _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ BEHAVIOUR DESCRIPTION (objective only) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Describe observable behaviours (what did you see/hear?): _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ INTERVENTION STRATEGIES (as per BSP) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ What strategies from BSP were used? _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES (if applicable) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [ ] None used [ ] Physical restraint - authorised: [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Mechanical restraint - authorised: [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Chemical restraint - authorised: [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Seclusion - authorised: [ ] Yes [ ] No Duration of use: _______________ minutes Reason for use: ___________________________________ PARTICIPANT RESPONSE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ How did participant respond to interventions? _________________________________________________ OUTCOME ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resolution time: _______________ minutes Participant wellbeing: _________________________________ Any injuries: [ ] Yes [ ] No Details: _______________ FOLLOW-UP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Coordinator notified: [ ] Yes [ ] No Time: _______ Family notified: [ ] Yes [ ] No Time: _______ NDIS Commission notified: [ ] Yes [ ] No Time: _______ Next steps: _________________________________________ SIGNATURES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Support Worker: _______________ Date: _______ Supervisor: ___________________ Date: _______ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a behaviour support note and an incident report?
A behaviour support note documents behaviours and interventions related to the BSP. An incident report is required when a reportable incident occurs (serious injury, unauthorised restrictive practice, etc.). Behaviour support notes may inform incident reports, but they serve different purposes.
When do I need to report restrictive practices to NDIS Commission?
Unauthorised restrictive practices (used without BSP authorisation) must be reported within 24 hours. Authorised restrictive practices must be recorded and reviewed regularly, but only require reporting if they cause serious harm or death.
Can I use physical restraint without authorisation?
No. Physical restraint is a restrictive practice that requires authorisation in a BSP. Emergency use may be justified to prevent imminent harm, but must be reported to NDIS Commission within 24 hours as an unauthorised restrictive practice.
How detailed should de-escalation documentation be?
Detailed enough that another worker could follow the same strategies. Document: trigger, strategies used (from BSP), participant response, time to de-escalate, and outcome. Include quotes when relevant.
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Author: NoteScribe Team
Published: March 2026
Updated for: NDIS Practice Standards 2026
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