PBS Capability Endorsement: What are the Steps?
Introduction
This is a topic that isn’t particularly well explained in any of the widely available PBS Practitioner tools, which causes a lot of confusion and questions in my experience! People regularly ask me how they can achieve the different levels of the PBS Capability Framework and there’s also some beliefs out there which have sprung up over time - e.g. do I have to wait for my Re-endorsement Letter before I can start working on my Core Level Capabilities?
I’d like to talk through my experience in this topic using knowledge and experience I’ve acquired both as a Supervisee and a Supervisor who’s been around for a while in this space and seen the emergence and decline of different ways of progression. I’d like to emphasise that this is me talking about my experience and how I interpret the PBS Capability Framework and supporting information from the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission; this isn’t me offering a formal guide on this topic that all Supervisors will follow.
What Do I Actually Need to Do to Progress?
At this stage, the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission do not endorse Behaviour Support Practitioners (BSPs) against the PBS Capability Framework. They clearly state this on their website in bold letters at the time I write this.
So how do you progress? And what do you need?
To answer the first question, the Commission state progression occurs between you and your “professional and clinical supervision arrangements”. What I interpret this to mean is that you and your Supervisor must work together to assess your practitioner level. This is supported by the fact they provide an Endorsement Tool which is used to determine current practitioner level against the PBS Capability Framework and is signed by the practitioner and their Supervisor.
To get to the stage of completing this Endorsement Tool together, I have a process that I follow in my Supervision practice that I feel best captures the intent behind the Commission’s information and resources.
Download the Self-Assessment Resource Guide from the Commission’s website and scroll through the document to find the next level you want to achieve (this will probably be the Core level if you’ve never done this before). If you’re looking at Core or Proficient, it should look like multiple pages of tables outlining 7 domains and the knowledge and skills capabilities that are required within each of these. There will also be spaces to add your sources of evidence, plus somewhere to write about why your evidence pieces are relevant to the capabilities in the domain above it.
I recommend extracting the level you require, including all its domains, capabilities, sources of evidence, and relevance boxes into another document. Or you can also delete around what you need in the original document. This makes it much easier to scroll up and down, and find your place without having to navigate the incredibly long document each time.
Reading through each of the capabilities, consider whether you’re confident in what the capability is asking for PLUS whether you can prove your knowledge or skill in this. Proving this requires written evidence, which can be documents or reports you've written, shift/case notes, emails, assessments delivered, behaviour recording pages, training or session plans, meeting or supervision records, your qualifications, certifications, or training you've received, etc. There’s absolutely more than this; if it’s written down, then it’s likely to be evidence.
If you don’t feel confident in the capability, or you can’t think of any written evidence, you may want to mark it as ‘Developing’ and discuss this with your Supervisor. Sometimes the jargon within the capabilities doesn’t feel clear or it can be hard to think of what evidence you could show, so involving your Supervisor and seeking their advice is something I’d recommend. Let us translate it into practice for you instead of leaving you in paralysis.
Once you’ve reached the bottom of the tick and flick for the domain, you’ll need to list your sources of evidence for the capabilities if you haven’t already done that. The Commission have 3 lines already added there for your evidence, however in my experience it’s really hard to find only 3 pieces of evidence strong enough to cover all of your capabilities. You’re much more likely to cover most or all of the capabilities by selecting 5-7 firm evidence sources and just adding in some extra rows to that section. As a note, it’s okay to reuse the same evidence source across domains. For example, a robust and updated Comprehensive PBSP might be strong evidence in your Functional Analysis, Planning, Implementation, Know It Works, and Restrictive Practice domains.
You’ll also want to now explain why you’ve selected these evidence pieces. If I was going to review this for you, I’d recommend that you explain each evidence piece separately and clearly state which capabilities you’re covering with this. This makes it a great deal easier for me, as the reviewer, to see the connection explicitly rather than spending more time having to piece together the evidence and capabilities, and uncovering potential gaps to be filled.
Go ahead and do this same process for all 7 domains (assuming you’re doing this for Core, or Core and Proficient). Just a note on that, I know I said I wasn’t going to be a formal guide, but the Self-Assessment Resource Guide explicitly states that you must have met all of the Core level capabilities before you can be considered for the Proficient level. So that means if you get to the end of doing the Core and Proficient capabilities and you still have any capabilities that are ‘Developing’ in Core, then you’ll only be able to reach the Core level until you’ve managed to achieve them all, even if you’ve also nearly completed the Proficient capabilities.
Once this document is completed, make sure you’ve put everything aside in a folder that you’ve listed as a source of evidence. Your Supervisor will need to review these as part of the overall review. If you were my Supervisee, I’d ask you to please do 1 folder for Core and 1 folder for Proficient so it's easier to connect the evidence to the level and capabilities. I’d also ask you to make sure the list of evidence matches the same titles of your files within the folder so I can quickly find them. I haven’t come across any particular information about how your evidence portfolio needs to look. You may like to do folders for each domain as a heading, or you may just like to save all your evidence into one big folder. If I could choose what I’d prefer to review, it would be the one where the evidence is separated out into the domains (this once again saves me time which only makes things cheaper for you!).
When your evidence portfolio is ready, I ask my Supervisees to send me the completed Self-Assessment Tool/s along with access to their folders of evidence. At this point, my Supervisees have completed what I require before I commence my review of their practitioner level.
When Do I Know I’m Ready to Achieve the Next Level?
I think this is actually an incredibly deep topic and I’d like to explore this specifically in its own separate article later. However, for now, I’ll give you a few ideas about what I think might demonstrate a readiness to achieve the next level.
For Core level, I would be looking for the following signs:
The panic of ‘I don’t know what to do’ becomes less and less common in sessions. It feels as though they’re no longer treading water and are showing signs they’re ready to tackle this role
Discussion about participants starts to become more about deeper exploration, reviewing strategies, and troubleshooting barriers and concerns rather than about general instructions for the PBS process
The Supervisee doesn’t need to ask as many foundational questions (though of course these still occur!); instead their questions become more targeted to tailoring something better to their participant or similar
The Supervisee is comfortable talking about their approach and why they’ve done something
They’re more confident in their knowledge and skills when talking about topics such as Restrictive Practice
If I notice this transition, it tells me that the overall level of confidence and experience has grown enough that I could trust the Supervisee to work from beginning to end in supporting a participant and have only minor concerns about how this would go. I would still be expecting them to ask questions and discuss situations with me.
Moving onto the Proficient level, these are the signs I’ve come to associate with this:
The Supervisee begins to have more difficulty preparing an Agenda for Supervision as they’re feeling confident in their practice and don’t necessarily require as much advice (this is an important transition time for Supervision that Supervisors should catch as it means we need to redefine the supervision relationship and establish a more advanced purpose)
We start talking about amending and updating strategies that the BSP has been trialling, monitoring, and reviewing over a considerable length of time
Discussions focus on the finer points of participant support and showcase deeper knowledge about the person which has been built up over time
Questions demonstrate existing knowledge and a desire to improve even further - e.g. “this is how I’ve conducted my FBAs previously, and this is my experience doing it this way. I’m considering making this change. What do you think about this?”
The Supervisee can comfortably discuss a range of difficulties and barriers and what they’ve done to reduce these, including Restrictive Practice
They may begin to show interest in greater professional development, career progression, leadership opportunities, or otherwise which can signal a sense of confidence and experience
If someone is hitting this level, I would feel confident that they could manage their own caseload and they would be able to do this independently and consistently provide best practice supports. They may still need to come to me when something becomes difficult to navigate or there’s a niche topic or question.
Do I Have to Wait for my Re-Endorsement Letter Before I Can Start Working on my Core Level Review?
I haven’t seen any information from the Commission that says you have to wait to receive your letter before working on the PBS Capability Framework.
That doesn’t mean they haven’t stipulated this somewhere, it just means it hasn’t come to my attention across my practice as a Practitioner, Supervisee, or Supervisor in this field.
So, therefore, I continue to use the approach I was using before the Re-Endorsement Letter was introduced, and that is to allow my Supervisees to commence working on the Tool once they begin to feel ready to complete this. Demonstrating your Core capabilities and going through the Tool will be something you’re required to do when you receive your Re-Endorsement Letter anyway, so I don’t want my Supervisees waiting and then trying to rush this review. I much prefer the chip, chip, chip approach of gradually working on the Tool over time - e.g. gathering evidence for 1 domain every 1-2 months - aiming to complete it by the time your Re-Endorsement Letter arrives. That way you’ll have more opportunity to clarify information, reflect on the capabilities with a clear mind, and work with your Supervisor on the gaps you’ve been able to identify together. It’s likely this will be a more meaningful and relaxed approach than waiting for the panic to hit once you’ve received an official deadline in the Letter for this to be done.
How Do I Approach My Supervisor About a PBS Capability Framework Review?
I would recommend that you be open and honest about feeling you’re ready for a review of your practitioner level. However, you must be ready to receive that same openness and honesty from your Supervisor. This includes hearing where the Supervisor might perceive a knowledge or skill capability that needs to be developed. This might sometimes be at odds with your own assessment too, which can feel even worse. It shouldn’t, but it can shake your confidence if you were expecting to breeze through an endorsement or if your Supervisor disagrees with the level you believe you are.
It’s actually happened to me before back when the Self-Assessment Tool was first introduced in 2021. I received an email from the Commission inviting me to complete the Tool as I was a registered BSP. The email stated I was a Specialist Behaviour Support Practitioner, so I interpreted that to mean the Commission was saying they’d somehow already decided I would meet the Specialist level. I talked to my Supervisor about what level she thought I should be aiming for when completing the Tool, and she very gently brought me back down to Earth by saying she’d assess me at the Core level. It was an embarrassing moment for me, and I also felt quite humbled, but it was important for me to experience a realistic assessment of where my knowledge and skills were actually sitting.
What Will My Supervisor Look For and Do?
Going back to our earlier discussion about the steps for the Supervisee to complete to trigger a review, I’ll now briefly talk about what I do once I receive the Tool/s and the Evidence Portfolio.
Firstly, I'll go through the Tool/s in order to get a general idea of the quality of the evidence and see if there’s any obvious gaps or areas of weakness that need to be strengthened.
I’ll then keep the Tool/s open as I go through the Evidence Portfolio files provided. I want to see that everything is there, and I want to look through those documents to see if it does evidence that capability.
For gaps I’ve noticed, weaker evidence points, or similar, I’ll provide information back in an Assessment Report. I’ve never seen another Supervisor use this kind of document before, but I felt that the Supervisor’s review lacked structure and a clear way of communicating back to the Supervisee so I created it. It’s free to download and review, or use yourself if you’re a Supervisor reading this. This report is kept in our Store here.
The other components I like to complete within the Assessment Report are my impression of the knowledge and skills strengths your portfolio demonstrated (we must also focus on the positives!), the overall strength of your evidence list and the portfolio you provided, and then I discuss more specifically the capabilities you may still need to attend to. I also find it an important part of this review to give you some actions or recommendations for how you might be able to evidence remaining capabilities, plus how long I would predict this to take using my understanding of your caseload and opportunities.
The report finishes with overall recommendations, including whether I would recommend an endorsement at the level you’re hoping to achieve, and my reasoning for this.
What Do I Need to Do After my Supervisor Reviews my Evidence Portfolio?
If You’ve Been Endorsed for All Competencies
Congratulations! You’re now all done with the capabilities at that level and can continue on in your practice, gradually acquiring more skills and experience for your next level review.
If You’ve Been Endorsed Against Some Capabilities
You may have been assessed to be at that practitioner level by your Supervisor (check the Endorsement Tool for this), but you still have some capabilities to finish developing. It’s good to make a plan of attack here with your Supervisor - as mentioned earlier, I like to explicitly set down actions for how the remaining capabilities can be achieved. Otherwise, it can leave the Supervisee feeling demotivated about finishing these off.
It’s important to note that almost every Tool and Portfolio I’ve reviewed since I became a Supervisor will have something I either need to clarify with the Supervisee, an unclear connection between capability and evidence, and/or developing capabilities that still need to be worked on. Usually the people who’ve been endorsed for all capabilities are the ones that started early, chipped away, and continued checking in with their Supervisor for support and guidance along the way.
If Your Supervisor Thinks You’re Not Quite There
I shared my earlier story in the hopes that it will make you feel more comfortable with the idea that you might still have some things to work on, even though we’d all like to have things all tidied and completed in the first attempt. Even though it can be a blow to your confidence to find out your Supervisor doesn’t think you’re ready, it’s something I’d allow myself to sit with and process. Do they have a point? Am I potentially missing some skills or knowledge? I’d allow myself to come to terms with this before I start to push myself towards a plan of action. Being not quite there can also mean that you’re almost there, and that you can get there with the right guidance from your Supervisor. So when you’re ready, dust yourself off and reach out to them for support to achieve your next level. You will get there, and you’re not in a race; we all get there and we all get there at different times. It’s also very based around your opportunities, your caseload, your exposure to Restrictive Practice, and a whole lot of other factors that might not be in your control, so please try not to feel too disheartened. This is only for now, not forever.
What Evidence Do I Receive That I’ve Met the Next Level in the PBS Capability Framework?
This is quite an anti-climactic answer but the only formal evidence of endorsement I’ve come across is the Endorsement Tool itself. This is the document which clearly outlines your assessed practitioner level and has the signature of yourself and your Supervisor on it.
Because I find it a shame to not celebrate this milestone, I’ve also created my own certificates to provide to Supervisees when they reach each level. Achieving each level is a great amount of work, and we should recognise the time and energy you put into developing your practice! It’s not much, but as BSPs we need to celebrate each other so this is something small that I do to help show that I understand the effort you’ve just put in.
Conclusion
This has been quite a long article - much longer than I originally anticipated - but I really think it’s worthwhile talking about the process of practitioner level endorsement from both sides of the table, using my experience as the one being reviewed and the one reviewing. I hope this has helped to make the process clearer for you and given you a few tips which you’ll take away and use in making your own review a more streamlined experience.
Still Have Questions?
If you'd like to ask an active BSP and Supervisor some specific questions about endorsement and evidence, you can book a free 20-minute chat with Rebecca.
