The use of the BSS Functional model with older people in a care environment

The Newcastle Behaviour Support Service (BSS) was established in 2005. Its role is to support care home staff to meet the needs of older people with a diagnosed dementia or cognitive decline. BSS uses the Newcastle Model of unmet needs to formulate and collaboratively devise interventions to meet the needs of its client group. More recently, BSS have started to provide support for people living in care homes without a diagnosed dementia. This intervention has used an adapted version of the Newcastle model to help staff better understand the person’s needs and behaviour. A working pilot was launched in 2019 to explore whether the Newcastle Model could be used or adapted for clients living with mental health difficulties in a care environment. This article discusses the implementation and evaluation of the pilot of what the service have termed the Functional Pathway; it includes feedback from staff and successes and challenges faced, in addition to considering the impact of the interventions and next steps. Initial results support the use of an adapted Newcastle Model in a Functional Pathway for BSS and suggest this is a feasible and helpful way of working with this client group. This model was implemented in the service following this evaluation. BSS were able to use a tripartite* way of working to develop appropriate interventions via formulation to work with people living with mental health difficulties who are presenting with behaviours that challenge.