The NDIS Has Released a New Guide on Behaviour Support Assessments. Here Is What It Actually Means.
A plain English explanation of the NDIS Commission's new practice guide on behaviour support assessment and functional behaviour assessments, what prompted it, and what it means if you or someone you love receives behaviour support.
Something New Just Landed From the NDIS Commission
If you have anything to do with behaviour support under the NDIS, whether you are a parent, a carer, a support coordinator, or a participant yourself, there is a new document worth knowing about. In June 2026 the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission released a practice guide called Behaviour Support Assessment, including Functional Behaviour Assessment.
It is not flashy. It is not a media release with a catchy headline. It is a 44 page guide written mainly for behaviour support practitioners and providers. But the ideas inside it directly affect how your behaviour support assessment will be done, what questions your practitioner should be asking, and how your plan should be shaped going forward. So we wanted to break it down in plain language, the way we would explain it to a family sitting across the table from us.
The short version: the NDIS Commission found that most behaviour support plans in Australia are not as good as they should be. This guide is the Commission's attempt to fix that, by lifting the standard of the assessment that every plan is built on.
Why Has the Commission Done This Now?
The honest reason is quality. Each year the Commission reviews a sample of behaviour support plans from around the country to see how well they are written. The most recent review, the Behaviour Support Plan Quality Snapshot 2025, found that the average plan still sits in what the Commission calls the "underdeveloped" range.
That finding matters because of a simple piece of logic the Commission is now putting in writing. A behaviour support plan is only ever as good as the assessment underneath it. If the assessment is rushed, shallow, or misreads why a behaviour is happening, then every strategy that follows is built on shaky ground, no matter how nicely the plan itself is written. Rather than trying to fix plans after the fact, the Commission has decided to go further back and lift the standard of the assessment stage itself.
Who Is This Guide Actually Written For?
The guide is aimed squarely at registered providers of specialist behaviour support and at NDIS behaviour support practitioners, meaning the people who carry out assessments and write plans. If that is part of your job, the guide is speaking directly to you.
But it is also useful reading for anyone connected to a person receiving behaviour support. Families, support workers, teachers and other implementing providers all play a part in a good assessment. The guide is clear that quality assessment is a shared effort. It does not happen in a single appointment in isolation from everyone else in a person's life.
What This Guide Is, and What It Isn't
It is worth being clear about this early, because it is easy to assume the Commission has handed practitioners a new checklist or a mandatory form. It hasn't.
The guide is not a step by step manual. It does not walk a practitioner through exactly how to run an assessment, and it does not tell practitioners which specific tools or templates they must use. The Commission is explicit that practitioners are expected to keep their own clinical skills current and to use professional judgement.
What the guide does instead is describe what a quality assessment looks like, the principles it should be built on, and the standard the Commission expects to see. It is designed to be read alongside the existing PBS Capability Framework, not as a replacement for it.
What's Actually New or Different
For anyone already working within a genuine positive behaviour support model, very little of this is a reversal. It is more of a clear restatement of where the bar sits, with a few areas given much sharper focus than before.
A Whole Person View
The guide frames assessment as a holistic process, not just an FBA. It expects practitioners to look at the biological, psychological, social and environmental factors in a person's life, not just catalogue the behaviour itself.
Quality of Life as the Goal
The point of assessment is not to suppress behaviour. It is to understand a person well enough to genuinely improve their life, with their own views and preferences placed at the centre of the process.
Neurodiversity Affirming Practice
The guide is direct that features of a person's disability, such as stimming, sensory seeking, or different communication styles, should never be treated as behaviours that need to be changed.
Trauma Informed and Culturally Responsive
Assessment is expected to account for a person's trauma history and cultural background, rather than applying a one size fits all process to every participant.
A Logical Thread to Strategies
Whatever function is identified through the assessment should connect clearly and logically to the strategies recommended afterwards, including any plan to reduce or eliminate restrictive practices.
Guidance on AI Use
For the first time in a document like this, the Commission addresses the use of artificial intelligence in assessment and planning, and sets clear limits around privacy and personal information.
The Link to Restrictive Practices
Running through the whole guide is a connection that the Commission keeps coming back to: higher quality assessment and planning is associated with less reliance on restrictive practices over time. This is not a side note. It sits at the centre of why the guide exists at all.
When an assessment properly understands why a behaviour is happening, including the unmet needs, the environmental triggers, and the communication difficulties behind it, practitioners are far better placed to recommend proactive strategies that genuinely reduce the behaviour, rather than relying on restraint, seclusion, or other restrictive responses as a default.
Worth knowing: if a person's plan currently includes restrictive practices, this guide gives families and support coordinators a clearer, written standard to ask whether the assessment behind that plan genuinely meets the bar the Commission now expects.
What This Means If You Are a Participant or Family Member
You do not need to read all 44 pages of a Commission practice guide to benefit from it. Here is what it practically means for you:
- Your behaviour support practitioner should be asking about more than just the behaviour itself. Expect questions about health, history, environment, relationships, and what a good day actually looks like for the person.
- You and your family should be genuinely involved in the assessment process, not just informed of the outcome after the fact.
- If the person you support is autistic or has a different communication or sensory profile, the assessment should be distinguishing clearly between behaviours of concern and traits that are simply part of who they are.
- The strategies in any resulting plan should make sense given what the assessment found. If they feel disconnected from the reasons identified, it is reasonable to ask why.
- If restrictive practices are involved, there should be a clear, documented pathway toward reducing and eventually removing them, built on what the assessment uncovered.
What Happens Next
For providers and practitioners, the practical first step is straightforward. Read the guide properly, alongside the PBS Capability Framework, and look honestly at whether current assessment practice would hold up against the standard the Commission has now put in writing.
For families and participants, the most useful thing you can do is simply be aware this guide exists. It gives you a clearer, official reference point if you ever feel an assessment or plan has not properly captured the full picture of the person you are supporting.
| Question | What the guide says |
|---|---|
| Is this a new legal requirement? | It is a practice guide, not new legislation. It clarifies and reinforces expectations that already exist under the NDIS Act and Rules. |
| Does it replace the PBS Capability Framework? | No. It is designed to be read alongside it, not instead of it. |
| Does it tell practitioners exactly how to run an FBA? | No. It sets expectations and standards, not a fixed method or template. |
| Does it apply to existing behaviour support plans? | It applies going forward to assessment practice, and gives a benchmark families can use to question the quality of any plan, including existing ones. |
Where Capability Support Services Stands on This
We already work to a person-centred, evidence-based positive behaviour support model built around our own framework, Capable Environments. That approach has always looked beyond the behaviour itself, at the environment, the relationships, and the unmet needs sitting underneath it. The direction of this new guide lines up closely with how we already practise.
That said, we are not treating this as a tick and move on moment. Our behaviour support team is reviewing the guide in full and checking our own assessment processes against it, because a written standard like this is only useful if it actually changes practice on the ground.
Have questions about an existing behaviour support plan, or starting a new FBA? Our registered behaviour support practitioners on the Gold Coast and Brisbane are happy to talk it through. Call 1800 299 399.
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Behaviour Support Assessment, including Functional Behaviour Assessment: Practice Guide (2026). Available via the NDIS Commission's behaviour support resources page at ndiscommission.gov.au.
Frequently Asked Questions
In June 2026, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission released a new practice guide called Behaviour Support Assessment, including Functional Behaviour Assessment. It sets out what the Commission expects a quality behaviour support assessment to look like, and is meant to be read alongside the existing PBS Capability Framework.
The Commission's own review, the Behaviour Support Plan Quality Snapshot 2025, found that the average behaviour support plan in Australia still falls in the underdeveloped range. The Commission's view is that a plan can only be as good as the assessment behind it, so this guide aims to lift the quality of assessments at the source.
The guide is not a step by step manual and does not prescribe specific tools or templates. Instead it sets a clearer standard for what a quality assessment looks like, including a more holistic view of the person, stronger collaboration with families and support networks, and a clearer link between the assessment findings and the strategies recommended.
The guide is explicit that features of a person's disability, such as stimming, sensory seeking, or different communication styles, should never be treated as behaviours that need to be changed. Assessment should focus on genuine behaviours of concern, not on traits that are simply part of how a person is wired.
Capability Support Services already works to a person-centred, evidence-based positive behaviour support model, so the direction of this guide lines up with how we already practise. We are reviewing our processes against the new guide to make sure every assessment we deliver continues to meet the standard the Commission expects.
Need an FBA or Behaviour Support Plan That Meets the New Standard?
Our registered behaviour support practitioners on the Gold Coast and Brisbane build assessments around the whole person, not just the behaviour. Get in touch for a free initial conversation.
About Capability Support Services: Registered NDIS provider based in Coomera, Queensland. We deliver behaviour support, FBA, occupational therapy, speech pathology, psychology, and exercise physiology across Gold Coast, Brisbane, and Australia-wide via telehealth. Learn more about our team
