Who's challenging who? Changing attitudes towards those whose behaviour challenges.

Area of Science:

• Disability Studies
• Psychology
• Social Work

Background:

• Staff attitudes towards individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and challenging behaviors are crucial for positive support.
• Limited research exists on training interventions designed to modify staff attitudes.
• Positive contact is a hypothesized method for attitude change toward stigmatized groups.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and develop a training package aimed at improving staff attitudes and empathy towards individuals with challenging behaviors.
• To evaluate the feasibility and short-term impact of the developed training program.

Main Methods:

• A half-day training package, "Who's Challenging Who" (WCW), was developed collaboratively with individuals with ID and challenging behaviors.
• The WCW training was delivered by a trainer with ID and a professional without disability to 76 staff members.
• Attitudes, empathy, and self-efficacy were measured before and after the training, with post-training evaluations also collected.

Main Results:

• The WCW training package received highly positive evaluations from staff participants.
• Significant short-term improvements were observed in staff empowerment, similarity attitudes, empathy, and self-efficacy.
• These positive changes were associated with small to moderate effect sizes.

Conclusions:

• The WCW training model is feasible and demonstrated meaningful short-term positive changes in staff attitudes.
• Further research with more robust designs is needed to validate these findings.
• The integration of attitude-change interventions like WCW into organizational training strategies requires further development.