Managing challenging behaviour in the community: methods and results of interactive staff training

A necessary condition for a high quality of community care in relation to challenging behaviour is staff training in appropriate methods. This paper describes the application of a practical 'interactive staff training' approach with n = 101 staff, featuring the use of focused and experiential learning in teams. The findings indicated that the course was socially acceptable to the participants, led to a significant improvement in their knowledge of nonphysical methods, and resulted in written guidelines for managing their own clients' challenging behaviour. Furthermore, agreements were clarified on how these guidelines would be implemented by each team following training. Implications are drawn for improved evaluation of this promising training programme, including developing the measures of learning and adding a generalisation assessment.