Setting up a new team of support staff for people with mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning and severe challenging behaviour: A concept mapping study.
Suzanne Lokman, Wietske M W J van Oorsouw, Robert Didden and 1 others
PMID 35789034WHAT IT FOUND
Service users prioritised staff who know them personally and make them feel safe.
Support staff prioritised team safety and colleague trust. Professionals prioritised a shared organisational vision. All groups agreed that introducing service users to new staff before the move helps build trust.
Key findings
01Service users rated staff who are closely involved, reliable, and who know them personally as the most important factors when setting up a new support team.
02Support staff rated team safety, defined as trust among colleagues and feeling safe to share vulnerabilities, as the most critical factor.
03All three groups identified the importance of introducing service users to their new support staff before the transfer to the residential home.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The sample size was small, with only 11 service users, 6 support staff, and 6 supporting professionals. The sorting and prioritising tasks were difficult for some service users, leading to the exclusion of data from three participants who struggled with concentration. The group of supporting professionals consisted mainly of psychologists, with limited representation from team leaders or managers. The study was conducted in the Netherlands within a specific organisational context (Pro), which may limit generalisability to other settings.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The study was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these themes as evidence that specific interventions reduce challenging behaviour. The study identifies what participants consider important when forming a new team, but it does not measure clinical outcomes or prove that following these recommendations leads to better results.