EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

FOI 25/26-3705 DOCUMENT 2

EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

SGP KP Publishing

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

Table of Contents

1. Recent updates ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
2. Before you start …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
3. Support for behaviour through early childhood intervention supports ……………………. 6
4. Support for behaviour through specialist behavioural intervention support ……………. 7
5. Mandatory referral to Technical Advice and Practice Improvement Branch (TAPIB) … 8
6. Restrictive practices ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
7. Regulated restrictive practices …………………………………………………………………………….. 10
   • 7.1 PEC Question: Are regulated restrictive practices in use (or likely to be in use)? ……….. 10
   • 7.2 If you answer ‘Yes’ ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 11
   • 7.3 Example free text field responses for PEC question for regulated restrictive practices … 11
   • 7.3.1 Table 1 – Example free text field responses for restrictive practices (RP) and regulated restrictive practices (RRP) identified ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 12

Table of Contents – 2

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

When we say early childhood intervention supports, we mean Early Intervention Supports for Early Childhood which is an NDIS support we fund in NDIS plans for children younger than 9.

This article provides guidance for early childhood partners and planner delegates on:

• how to complete capacity building questions relating to restrictive practices in the Personal and Environmental Circumstances (PEC) case
• support for behaviour through early childhood intervention supports
• support for behaviour through Specialist Behavioural Intervention Support
• example free text field responses for restrictive practices and regulated restrictive practices.

Careful consideration should be made when completing the PEC case to best reflect the child and their family’s actual circumstances and NDIS funded support needs. The PEC case is used to inform the draft budget and planner delegate reasonable and necessary decision making.

An accurate and detailed answer to this question enables a planner delegate to consider the safeguards in place for the child. Read more in the article Guide – Safeguarding the participant’s interests.

Recent updates – 3

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

1 Recent updates

7 April 2026

• Additional guidance on support for behaviour through early childhood intervention supports
• Additional guidance on support for behaviour through specialist behavioural intervention support
• Additional guidance and examples on restrictive practices and regulated restrictive practices

Recent updates – 4

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2 Before you start

You have read and understood:

• Our Guideline – Behaviour Support (external)
• article Understand behaviour support
• article EC Early childhood intervention supports overview
• article EC PEC – Capacity building – How to complete early childhood intervention supports questions.

Before you start – 5

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

3 Support for behaviour through early childhood intervention supports

Every behaviour has a purpose and can be a way of communicating a message. A child’s behaviours need to be considered in the context of their age, social situation, culture, lived experience and disability.

A child’s support needs for their behaviour are likely to be met through early childhood intervention supports, delivered by early childhood intervention professionals. Early childhood intervention supports help families to understand age or developmentally appropriate behaviour; parenting practices; and behaviour management strategies relating to the child’s developmental delay or disability. This support can help families understand their child’s behaviours, build the skills of the child, and develop effective strategies to be used by important adults in the child’s life to reduce challenging behaviours.

NDIS plans for children younger than 9 include early childhood intervention supports. When there is a delay in the area of emotional development, often there are behaviours that require support. Support for emotional development can be considered as an area of need when calculating a base level of early childhood intervention. Read article EC Early childhood intervention supports overview for more information. Specialist Behavioural Intervention Support is not often required for children younger than 5. Unlike early childhood intervention professionals, behaviour support practitioners may not have extensive training in child development. The NDIS early childhood approach recognises that collaborative and coordinated teamwork is essential to best practice in early childhood intervention (external). The behaviour support practitioner should operate as part of the team around the child to reduce behaviours of concern.

Support for behaviour through early childhood intervention supports – 6

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

4 Support for behaviour through specialist behavioural intervention support

Specialist Behavioural Intervention Support is an NDIS support delivered by a NDIS behaviour support practitioner aligned to NDIS (Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support) Rules 2018 (external). If it is required it is included in plans for children under the support category ‘Behaviour support’.

Behaviour support is a therapeutic support aimed at understanding the reasons for behaviour and implementing positive strategies such as changing the environment or routines, removing triggers, and creating a more supportive environment.

Funding for early childhood plans include intervention supports based on developmental areas of need therefore specialist behavioural intervention is not often required. However, there may be exceptional circumstances where specialist behavioural intervention support may be required. This would usually be:

• due to the use, or likely use, of restrictive practices or regulated restrictive practices requiring development of a behaviour support plan
• where there is evidence a child’s behaviours are of such frequency, intensity, or duration that they put themselves or other around them at risk of harm, requiring behaviour support to address the significant risk to the participant or others. This may include evidence from early childhood intervention professionals of their intervention to address the child’s support needs for their behaviour.

Behaviour support allows a set of agreed upon and documented strategies to be implemented by everyone involved with a child, across all environments in which the behaviour may occur.

Further guidance around the level of specialist behavioural intervention support can be found in the Planning Conversation Support Tool.

Support for behaviour through specialist behavioural intervention support – 7

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

5 Mandatory referral to Technical Advice and Practice Improvement Branch (TAPIB)

Use of some restrictive practices require advice from TAPIB. Check the current mandatory referral criteria. If necessary, the planner delegate must create a technical advice case and submit it to TAPIB. A response from TAPIB must be received prior to the inclusion or exclusion of funding related to restrictive practice or regulated restrictive practice in the participant’s NDIS plan. Refer to Technical Advice and Practice Improvement Branch Confluence for more information.

Mandatory referral to Technical Advice and Practice Improvement Branch (TAPIB) – 8

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

6 Restrictive practices

The NDIS Act 2013 defines restrictive practices as ‘any practice or intervention that has the effect of restricting the rights or freedom of movement of a person with disability’.

Restrictive practices are used to help stop or change a behaviour. Families or mainstream services may use restrictive practices with children as a response to behaviours of concern and significant risk of harm to the child or others. Positive behaviour support strategies aim to build capacity of the child and their support people (parent, teachers, support workers) to reduce the likelihood that restrictive practices will be used or needed.

There are rules about the use of restrictive practices. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NDIS Commission) does not regulate families or mainstream services in their use of restrictive practices. However, the use of restrictive practices by families or other services in the child’s life is likely to suggest that the child has behaviours of concern.

Where a child has behaviours of concern it can be helpful to understand why these are occurring, reduce the triggers for those behaviours, and help the child and those supporting them to put in place strategies to replace or reduce the behaviours. This type of support can be developed through Behaviour Support funding. Behaviour support practitioners undertake a functional assessment and draw together information from other early childhood professionals to build a plan to build capacity, learn new skills etc.

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

7 Regulated restrictive practices

Under the NDIS (Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support) Rules 2018 (external), use of restrictive practices by NDIS providers are subject to regulation by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (external). These are referred to as regulated restrictive practices and include seclusion, chemical restraint, mechanical restraint, physical restraint, or environmental restraint.

This NDIS law outlines the requirements for providers who implement regulated restrictive practices. Implementing providers must be registered by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission for the type of support they are providing and be assessed and audited against Practice Standard Module 2A: Implementing behaviour support plans.

Regulated restrictive practices must be contained in a behaviour support plan with the appropriate authorisation from the relevant state or territory. The behaviour support plan must be developed by a NDIS registered behaviour support practitioner who is recognised as being suitable by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (external) within legislated time frames and submitted to the NDIS Commission.

Each state or territory has different rules about the authorisation of restrictive practice. States and territories may have some practices that cannot be used at all, and these practices are known as ‘prohibited’ practices. Refer to the Restrictive Practices Authorisation Frameworks (PDF428.1KB) for more information.

To learn more about restrictive practices for children, go to the NDIS Commission Regulated Restrictive Practices with Children and Young People with Disability: Practice Guide (PDF 1MB).

7.1 PEC Question: Are regulated restrictive practices in use (or likely to be in use)?

Answers to this question should include identification of restrictive practices used by family or mainstream services, and regulated restrictive practices used by NDIS providers.

Answer ‘Yes’ if you have identified:

• the child’s family or mainstream service is using, or is likely using, restrictive practices; or
• NDIS providers are using, or are likely using, regulated restrictive practices.

Please do not use the ‘Unsure/Unanswered’ option.

If you need more information on recognising restrictive practices to answer this question, see TAPIB Talk - Restrictive Practices, or go to NDIS Commission Regulated Restrictive Practices with Children and Young People with Disability: Practice Guide (PDF 1MB), or NDIS Commission fact sheets (external). You can provide any relevant NDIS Commission resources to families.

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SGP KP Publishing – EC PEC - Capacity building - Regulated restrictive practices

7.2 If you answer ‘Yes’

If you have identified there is a use of, or likely to be the use of restrictive practices or regulated restrictive practices, check if:

• the family have a NDIS behaviour support practitioner; and
• there is a behaviour support plan. If yes, ask for a copy of the behaviour support plan and check it is current.

If one or both of these requirements are not in place for the child, and a restrictive practice is being used that needs authorisation from the relevant state or territory, this is an unauthorised restrictive practice. Refer to Restrictive Practices Authorisation Frameworks (PDF428.1KB). This is a participant critical incident (PCI) and must be reported. See the article Understand participant critical incidents for more information.

If there is a use of, or likely to be the use of restrictive practices or regulated restrictive practices, funding for behaviour support needs to be included in the child’s plan. This funding enables a NDIS behaviour support practitioner to undertake assessments, develop behaviour support plans and if required, support authorisation of regulated restrictive practices.

Further guidance around the level of specialist behavioural intervention support can be found in the Planning Conversation Support Tool.

The NDIS Commission participant resources (external) can help you explain what behaviour support is and what restrictive practice means and can be provided to families. Participant fact sheet 1: What is positive behaviour support? (PDF179KB) explains what a restrictive practice is and is also available in an easy read version (PDF 3MB).

7.3 Example free text field responses for PEC question for regulated restrictive practices

The table below gives examples on how an early childhood partner or planner delegate may complete the free text fields for the PEC Capacity Building regulated restrictive practices question. If any of the restrictive practice examples are implemented by a NDIS provider, it becomes a regulated restrictive practice.

Make sure to include:

• who is implementing the practice, for example, parent, school, NDIS support worker
• what the practice is and why it is needed
• the source of the information, when and how the information was obtained. If the information is available in a report, add the name, profession, date of report/s. Reports must be uploaded into PACE.

The free text fields have character limits. If more space is required, add the information to internal note in the Activity log.

Please use the following table as a guide only.

Regulated restrictive practices – 11

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