For Erin Verberne, relocating back to her hometown of Melbourne was always in her life plan. After growing up and studying in Melbourne, and working as a Disability Support Worker, Erin had been working at The Disability Trust in Canberra – a short term location whilst her partner studied. From roles in Finance, NDIS Transition and as a Service Manager, Erin had steered her career path to Behaviour Support with Trusted Clinical Services.
“I’ve always wanted to work in Behaviour Support” explains Erin. “The role has so much variety - I work with the person, or sometimes with families or service teams, schools or other agencies”
“Connecting with people and developing relationships is so crucial for the role - but for me it’s being on the person’s side and advocating for that individual that is so important to me ”
Erin takes on the challenge when working in Behaviour Support to help people see things a different way and view “behaviours” through a different light. Helping others understand why a person might behave in a certain way and come up with long lasting strategies to make improvements is what drives Erin in her work.
Erin recalls one person she worked with – and the support team talked about “noncompliance”- the person was not taking showers and completing daily personal care. Erin worked with the team to try to think differently about the situation - how that person was making choice and having control in their day, exploring what else was impacting that person in those circumstances and helped the team to approach thinking about “behaviours” more broadly.
As a result, the team were able to determine the person was not just “refusing”- it went much deeper than that. As a team, they sought more engagement with the person, learnt more about how and what that person was communicating - and generally developed a more holistic understanding of the person.
A range of changes - including a heater in the cold bathroom, a radio whilst showering, generally making the whole process a lot more pleasant, including more choices and changes in the person’s schedule and less directing – ultimately lead to the person participating more in their personal care regime as well as significant improvements overall in their quality of life.
“It’s those situations where you can really make a difference for an individual person, and see the changes in action, that’s why I love working in Behaviour Support”.
If you would like to work with Erin, please contact Trusted Clinical Services
VIC: 03 9116 3175
NSW: 02 4250 2224.
