An examination of the addition of video informed reflective practice to the active support toolkit

Accessible summary Active support is one of the best ways of getting people with learning disabilities to be busy and to look after themselves. Good relationships between staff and people with learning disabilities are important. This study looked at organising staff to be better at supporting the person with a learning disability. We also got them to record on video how they worked with the person. They watched these videos back so they could find out how to improve their support. The results showed that the staff were better at helping service users do things for themselves and that service users were busier. It is also showed that staff had better relationships with the service users. Abstract Background: This study evaluated a package of Active Support (AS), which included standard training with additional video informed reflective practice. Materials & Methods: The training package was implemented as part of a service improvement initiative in four residential intellectual disability homes, using a concurrent multiple baseline across environments design. Training consisted of a 1-day workshop, and follow-up coaching. Momentary time sampling was used to measure engagement levels and staff assistance. A new observational tool was piloted to code the presence of positive and negative interactions between staff and the people with intellectual disabilities. Results: Results showed that service user engagement levels and staff assistance increased significantly following the training. There was also a significant increase in positive interactions and a significant decrease in negative interactions between staff and service users. Conclusions: The implications of these results are discussed.