PMVA - 3 Day Training Reviews

It was all good and I enjoyed the training.

1. Some slides need updating eg ‘challenging behaviour’ is now referred to as ‘’behaviours of distress’ or ‘behaviours which challenge’. Use the alternative as well as challenging behaviour? 2. The ‘assault cycle’ is now referred to as ‘the arousal cycle’ which is more accurate 3. Autism is now referred to as Autistic spectrum conditions/ disorder and should mention the triad or days of impairment and associated issues such as obsessions, compulsions, hyposensitivity, hypersensitivity etc. As a trained clinician I thought the slide put up on autism was misleading. 4. Anger can be expressive or instrumental, and hostility can lead to anger. The instructor did not explain this accurately although we kinda got the point. 5. Please refer to functional analysis/ positive behaviour support which is to say all behaviour has meaning. Sometimes we just struggle to work it out. 6. Literature on bullying would be very helpful to refer to in this training and how it can be a trigger for behaviours of distress. 7. Race and culture needs integrating in a more meaningful way. Racism can be a trigger for incidents as people can become offended and wish to communicate this. There can also be racial bias in reporting of clients eg ‘white client advocating for their rights’, ‘black or Asian client arguing or disruptive’. If teaching to make ‘judgements’ about people to decide if physical intervention proportionate how can racial prejudice influence who can be deescalated with conversation and who needs high levels of physical intervention. Photos of people need to show a range of races eg how conditions may look on Black skin eg will lips turn blue or purple. 8. Otherwise excellent course and physical intervention training but spot on and very helpful. I felt strong enough about these issues to mention them in detail as I am a psychologist and this may be the only training some staff get in how to prevent and manage aggressive behaviour. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this.

Would have liked more theory around strategies that could be used and trialled before hands on is necessary but that may be because of my background in a school with kids rather than high profile/ high risk patients. Not always relevant to my setting but a mandatory training course none the less.