Observing practice leadership in intellectual and developmental disability services

Area of Science:

• Intellectual Disability Services
• Organizational Psychology
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Staff performance improvement is critical in intellectual disability services.
• Practice leadership, focusing on service user outcomes and staff coaching, is key.
• Previous findings on practice leadership relied solely on self-report measures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe and test a new observational measure of practice leadership.
• To assess the reliability and validity of this observational measure.
• To determine the association between observed practice leadership and staff/service user outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Developed an observational measure of practice leadership.
• Utilized interviews, paperwork review, and direct observations.
• Collected data from 58 disability services in Australia.

Main Results:

• The observational measure demonstrated good internal consistency and acceptable inter-rater reliability.
• Practice leadership was significantly associated with improved staff practice and service user outcomes.
• The measure effectively differentiated between higher and lower performing services regarding active support.

Conclusions:

• The observational measure of practice leadership is reliable and valid, suitable for research and service development.
• Findings confirm the link between practice leadership and quality of care, impacting policy and management training.
• Further testing is recommended to fully explore the measure's applications and reliability.