Made a Mistake as a BSP? Here’s What to Do Next
Introduction
Every Behaviour Support Practitioner is going to make mistakes.
Maybe you handled a conversation with a stakeholder in a way you wish you hadn't. Maybe you missed something important during your assessment. Maybe a strategy you were confident about hasn't worked the way you expected. Or maybe you've looked back at a PBSP you wrote six months ago and thought, I definitely wouldn't write that now.
I have to say I’m quite guilty of that last one, and also, welcome to being a perpetually developing practitioner!
Making a mistake — or simply realising that you could have done something better — can feel awful. It's easy to move from “I got this wrong” to “maybe I'm not very good at this”, particularly when you're working in a role where your decisions can have a significant impact on the people you support.
But getting something wrong doesn't have to be the end of the story. What matters more is what you do next.
This is where reflective practice becomes incredibly useful. Reflection gives us a structured way to move beyond the initial embarrassment, guilt or self-doubt and ask some much more helpful questions: What actually happened? Why did I make the decision I made at the time? What information did I have available? What have I learned since? And what would I do differently next time?
I know, it's that dreaded word — reflection. But reflection doesn't need to mean writing pages and pages about your feelings or completing another tedious professional development exercise. At its best, reflective practice is simply about being curious about your own work.
The goal isn't to become a practitioner who never gets anything wrong. It's to become a practitioner who can recognise when something hasn't gone well, learn from it, make changes, and become better because of it. So, let's talk about how to do that.
First Off - Don’t Panic!
When you've realised you've made a mistake, the problem can very quickly start to feel much bigger than it actually is.
Maybe you've discovered that your functional hypothesis wasn't quite right and you've been focusing on a replacement behaviour that isn't addressing the actual function.
Maybe you said something to a parent or stakeholder before your brain caught up with you.
Maybe you reread something in your PBSP and realised it could sound as though you're blaming the participant or their family.
Maybe you've ended up in an argument with a stakeholder who has been pushing back against your recommendations.
Or maybe one of your strategies simply hasn't worked as expected — and in some situations, things may actually have become more difficult as a result.
These situations can range enormously in seriousness, and of course some mistakes will require more immediate action than others. If there's an ongoing safety, rights, compliance or restrictive practice concern, that needs to be addressed appropriately.
But whatever has happened, panicking about it usually doesn't help you work out what to do next. When something goes wrong, it can easily feel as though your career and your dreams of becoming an excellent BSP are crumbling around you. We can become consumed by shame, embarrassment, guilt or anxiety and very quickly move from:
“I made a mistake.”
to:
Those are two very different statements.
Once you've had enough time to regulate and think clearly, reflective practice can help bring you back to the actual situation. Instead of getting stuck in how terrible it feels, you can start asking: What actually happened? Is there anything I need to address immediately? Why did it happen? What can I learn from it? And what do I need to do next?
That's where the problem usually starts becoming much more manageable.
When and Where to Reflect?
You don't necessarily need to start reflecting the second you realise something has gone wrong.
If you're feeling panicked, embarrassed, angry or overwhelmed, you might not yet be in the best headspace to objectively think through what happened. Sometimes the first thing you need to do is simply give yourself enough time to regulate and get some perspective.
Of course, this doesn't mean delaying something that requires immediate action. If there's an ongoing safety, rights, compliance or restrictive practice concern, address what needs to be addressed first. The deeper reflection can come afterwards.
For some people, that might be later the same day. For others, it might be the next day or after they've had an opportunity to talk things through with someone they trust. There's no perfect amount of time — the important thing is that you're able to approach the situation with enough distance to be curious about what happened rather than simply getting pulled back into how awful it felt.
It can also help to think about how you reflect best.
Personally, I usually like to talk things through with another person once I've had enough time to get my thoughts together. Having someone you trust and can be completely honest with is honestly gold in this career, and hopefully you can find that through your workplace, a trusted colleague, or your Supervisor.
Other people prefer to process things internally first. If that's you, put aside some uninterrupted time to work through what happened rather than trying to squeeze reflection into five minutes between appointments.
I've also worked with practitioners who need to talk relatively quickly. If they're left alone with the problem for too long, they can become increasingly caught up in the negative story they're telling themselves about what happened.
Often, once we sit down and work through it together, the situation starts looking very different.
Instead of:
“I've completely messed this up.”
we can start getting to:
“Okay. This happened. This is what needs fixing. This is what I've learned. And this is what I'm going to do next.”
That's the point of reflection.
If you find it difficult to get from that first emotional response to a more objective understanding of what happened, this is where a structured reflective practice tool can be incredibly useful.
What’s a Reflective Practice Tool or Framework?
Sometimes being told to “reflect on what happened” isn't particularly helpful.
Where do you start? What are you supposed to think about? And how do you stop reflection from turning into an hour of replaying everything you think you did wrong?
This is where a reflective practice framework can help. Think of it as a bit of a cheat sheet. Rather than trying to work everything out in your head at once, a framework gives you a series of questions or stages to work through. It helps you move from what happened, through to what you learned and what you're going to do next.
The framework I like to use is based on Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 as a structured way of learning from experience. It takes you through six stages:
Description — What actually happened?
Feelings — What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluation — What went well and what didn't?
Analysis — Why might things have happened the way they did?
Conclusion — What have you learned, and what could you have done differently?
Action Plan — What will you do differently next time?
What I particularly like about this approach for BSPs is that it doesn't finish with simply deciding whether something was “good” or “bad”. It pushes you towards learning and action. That's important because the goal of reflecting on a mistake isn't to punish yourself for getting something wrong. It's to understand what happened well enough that the experience can influence what you do next.
I've created a Reflective Practice Tool for Behaviour Support Practitioners based around this process, with prompts to help you work through each stage in the context of your own PBS practice. You can use it independently, bring it into Supervision, or use it when there's a particular situation you want to understand more clearly.
Putting Reflective Practice Into Action
Let's look at what this might actually look like in practice.
Imagine you're a BSP who has become completely overwhelmed by your workload. You're behind on reports, people keep emailing you asking for things you haven't finished, and you're starting to question whether you're actually any good at this job.
Your first reaction might be something along the lines of: “I'm a terrible BSP. I can't keep up with anything. Everyone else seems to be managing and I don't know why I'm finding this so difficult. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.” That's a very understandable emotional response.
But it doesn't give us much useful information about what has actually gone wrong — or what we can do about it. So let's work through it using the reflective cycle.
1. Description — What actually happened?
Start with the facts rather than your judgement of them.
I've fallen behind on several PBSPs and I have multiple reports due within the next few weeks. I've also recently accepted several new referrals. I'm struggling to keep up with emails and stakeholders have started following me up about outstanding work.
Already, this gives us much more useful information than “I'm a terrible BSP.”
2. Feelings — What was I thinking and feeling?
Now we can acknowledge the emotional part of the experience.
I'm feeling overwhelmed and embarrassed that people are following me up. I'm worried that my stakeholders think I'm unreliable, and I'm frustrated with myself because I feel like I should be able to manage my workload better.
The goal here isn't to decide whether those feelings are right or wrong. We're simply recognising that they're part of how we're experiencing the situation.
3. Evaluation — What went well and what didn't?
This is where we start looking at the situation a little more objectively.
I've maintained good relationships with most of my participants and stakeholders, and the work I've completed has generally been good quality. However, I've been saying yes to new referrals without really looking at what else is coming up in my caseload. I've also been prioritising whichever task feels most urgent on the day rather than planning ahead for larger pieces of work.
Now we're getting somewhere. The problem is starting to look less like “I'm a terrible BSP” and more like “there are some problems with how my workload is being managed.”
4. Analysis — Why might this have happened?
This is where we dig a little deeper.
I've been looking at my caseload mainly as a number of participants rather than considering how much work each participant currently requires. Several participants have PBSPs due around the same time, two have restrictive practices requiring additional work, and I've accepted new referrals without accounting for those upcoming deadlines.
I've also been reluctant to say no to referrals because I want to be helpful and I don't want my manager to think I can't manage my workload.
This is often where reflection becomes particularly useful. We're no longer asking: “What's wrong with me?”. We're asking: “What factors contributed to this situation?”. That's a much easier question to do something about.
5. Conclusion — What have I learned?
Now we can pull the reflection together.
I've realised that the number of participants on my caseload doesn't tell me enough about my actual workload. I need to consider complexity, upcoming deadlines, restrictive practices, stakeholder needs and the stage each participant is at in the PBS process.
I've also realised that I need to communicate earlier when I'm approaching capacity rather than waiting until I'm already overwhelmed.
That's a very different conclusion from where we started.
6. Action Plan — What am I going to do next?
Finally, reflection needs to lead somewhere.
I'm going to map out my current caseload and upcoming deadlines so I can see what actually needs to be completed over the next few months. I'll speak with my manager about my current capacity before accepting any additional referrals, and I'll bring my caseload management into Supervision so I can get another perspective on whether my workload is realistic.
In future, I'll check my capacity before agreeing to new referrals rather than relying solely on the number of participants I'm currently supporting.
And there we have it. We started with: “I'm a terrible BSP and maybe I'm not cut out for this.”
And finished with: “I've identified a problem with how I'm managing my caseload, I understand some of the factors that contributed to it, and I have a plan for what I'm going to do differently.”
The difficult situation hasn't magically disappeared. There may still be reports to finish, conversations to have and workload pressures to manage. But we've turned an emotional judgement about ourselves into something we can actually work with. That's what good reflective practice can do.
Can I Use Reflection When Debriefing With Others?
Absolutely — although I think it's helpful to make a distinction here. A structured reflective practice tool isn't necessarily the same thing as a formal post-incident debrief. However, many of the same questions can be incredibly useful when you're supporting someone else to think through an experience.
For example, you might explore:
What happened from their perspective?
What were they thinking or feeling at the time?
What went well?
What was difficult?
What do they think contributed to what happened?
Is there anything they would like to be different next time?
Is there anything they need from us now?
Depending on the situation, these kinds of conversations might be useful with a participant, a support worker, another practitioner or someone else involved in the person's support.
But the way we have that conversation matters. If you're reflecting with a participant, for example, the process needs to suit their communication preferences, cognitive and emotional needs, and readiness to talk about what happened. The purpose shouldn't be to convince them that our interpretation of an incident is correct.
Similarly, when we're talking with support staff following a difficult situation, reflection shouldn't become a disguised opportunity to identify who was “at fault”. We're trying to understand the experience.
I personally think this kind of reflective conversation is missed too often. Following a significant incident, there's understandably a lot of attention given to immediate safety, reporting, compliance, risk and what needs to happen next. But I've also found myself asking:
Has anyone actually talked to the participant about what happened?
Has anyone checked in with the support worker who was there?
Sometimes there's incredibly useful information sitting within those conversations — not only about what happened, but about what the person experienced, what helped, what didn't, and what we might need to think about differently in future. Plus, we might be able to help someone with an opportunity to feel heard and supported, which is worth its weight in gold.
If you’re considering using a reflective tool with a participant or stakeholder, I’d recommend trying our more generalised version available for download here as a place to start.
After the Reflection: Rebuilding Your Confidence
There's one more thing I think we need to talk about.
You can complete the most insightful reflection in the world, identify exactly what went wrong, develop an excellent action plan and know precisely what you're going to do differently next time…and still feel a bit rubbish about it.
Reflection doesn't necessarily make the feelings disappear.
I know that when I make a mistake and my confidence has taken a hit, I sometimes need to take things a little easier for a few days afterwards — as much as that's possible in this job! If I can, I might rearrange my calendar slightly so I'm spending more time doing things I feel confident in. For me, that might mean working with data, writing reports, or catching up with colleagues. There are few things better for rebuilding my energy than chatting away to my team members.
After a little while, I usually find myself coming out of that negative shell and feeling more ready to tackle the things that require a bit more confidence again — stakeholder meetings, delivering training, difficult conversations, or whatever else might be coming up.
That's what works for me. You'll need to work out what works for you.
You might want another conversation with your Supervisor. You might need some extra time with a trusted colleague. You might decide to make a little more space for yourself outside of work. Or perhaps the experience has highlighted something bigger that you need to pay attention to. The important thing is that you don't have to go from “That really knocked my confidence” to “Everything's fine!” overnight.
You've already done the important part. You've looked at what happened honestly. You've taken responsibility for whatever was within your control. You've identified what you can learn from it. And you've decided what you're going to do differently.
Now give yourself a little time to catch up with what you've learned. Because making a mistake doesn't mean you're going backwards as a practitioner. Sometimes, recognising the mistake and knowing what to do with it is actually evidence that you're moving forward.
Conclusion
If there's one thing I'd like you to take away from this article, it's this:
Making a mistake doesn't make you a bad Behaviour Support Practitioner. What you do next matters far more.
All of us — new and experienced — are going to have moments where we look back and realise we could have done something differently. We'll misunderstand situations. We'll write things we later wish we'd worded differently. We'll have strategies that don't work. We'll mishandle conversations. We'll miss things. And occasionally, we'll look back at our past work and wonder how that slipped through.
That's part of developing as a practitioner and we’ve all been the one in the hot seat, many times in fact. The important thing is being willing to look at what happened honestly.
Give yourself enough space to move beyond the initial panic or embarrassment. Work out what actually happened. Consider what contributed to it. Take responsibility for the things that were within your control. Seek support when you need it. And then decide what you're going to do differently. That's reflective practice. It isn't about proving that you're a good or bad BSP. It's about becoming a better one.
And perhaps one of the strange signs that you're developing as a practitioner is that you'll occasionally look back at something you did a year or two ago and think, “Oh... I wouldn't do that now.”
Good, you learned something. Now keep going.
Where to Next
If a mistake has left you questioning whether you're actually good enough to be a BSP, you might also like: Is It Normal to Feel Imposter Syndrome as a Practitioner?
Want Somewhere to Reflect on Your Practice?
You don't have to work through every difficult situation on your own.
Good PBS Supervision should give you somewhere safe to talk honestly about your practice — including the mistakes, the uncomfortable situations, the things that didn't work and the moments where you're simply not sure what to do next.
If you're looking for a Supervisor, you're welcome to book a free 20-minute compatibility chat with Rebecca to talk about what you're looking for from Supervision and whether we might work well together.
