Behaviour Support Worker

As a behaviour support worker, Shane (Ngāti Whakahemo, Ngāiterangi, Ngāti Ranginui) works with school students aged five and up whose behaviour is assessed as `severe'.

Severe behaviour is something Shane knows a lot about. As a teenager, he was almost patched-up with the local gang but discovered discipline through sport which he says: "headed me up a different track".

Shane left school and worked as a freezing worker for 12 years. He was made redundant but soon found voluntary work with the police for at-risk boys and later part time work at Te Puke Intermediate as a teacher aide with at-risk boys.

"I can relate to the experiences of these students, but it's my aim to show them that there's a better way," he says.

Typically, Shane works within a team of Ministry of Education, Special Education (GSE) staff. A team usually involves a special education advisor who acts as the lead case worker, a psychologist (though this varies from case to case), and a behaviour support worker. Sometimes his team might expand to include staff from other agencies such as Child Youth and Family or an iwi service.

Shane and his team also work closely with a student's classroom teachers and parents.

Together, they implement specially-developed behaviour plans and programmes.

Shane also works directly with students as a mentor. In this mentoring role, he talks to a student one-on-one about the possible consequences of his or her actions and helps them to develop coping skills to prevent those consequences from reoccurring in the future.

If a school is worried about a student's behaviour, they will usually talk to a Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) and their Special Education Needs Coordinator (SENCO) before referring a student to GSE.