This article is written for behaviour support practitioners, support coordinators, SIL providers and families. It connects research the NDIS Commission cites in its new practice guide with the day-to-day reality of support settings. This is not abstract theory. By the end, you’ll have a practical lens for looking at any support environment and seeing what’s missing.
At the end of this article, you will know:
- What “capable environments” means and where the concept comes from
- Why the practice guide says behaviour is always related to the context it occurs in
- The kinds of environmental features associated with fewer behaviours of concern
- How to use this lens as a coordinator, provider or family member
Two houses, same participant history on paper. In the first, behaviours of concern happen weekly. Staff know the residents well, activity fills the day, communication is everywhere: visuals, signs, patient conversations. In the second house, behaviours happen daily. Staff churn through, days are long and empty, and interactions mostly happen when something goes wrong.
Same disability. Same diagnosis. Different environments. Different behaviour.
Everyone in this sector has seen a version of this. The research has a name for what separates those two houses.
A capable environment is one where the conditions around a person actively support their wellbeing and make behaviours of concern less necessary. The concept asks us to stop asking only “what’s wrong with this person?” and start asking “what’s missing from this environment?”
Where the concept comes from.
The term comes from work by Peter McGill and colleagues, published in 2020, describing the key elements of environments in which people can thrive. Their work found these environmental elements are associated with the prevention of behaviours of concern and improved quality of life.
The NDIS Commission’s new practice guide on behaviour support assessment cites this research directly, alongside a striking line of its own: all behaviour is related to the context or environment in which the behaviour occurs. The guide also references research reframing “challenging behaviour” within a human rights approach, with some authors going as far as talking about “environments of concern” rather than behaviours of concern.
Sit with that reframe for a second. We’ve spent decades attaching the word “concern” to people’s behaviour. The research suggests the concern often belongs to the environment.
The guide backs this with a warning: if the various factors contributing to a person’s behaviours of concern are not addressed, even well-designed positive behaviour support may not be enough to achieve lasting behaviour change. In other words, you cannot out-plan a bad environment.
What a capable environment actually contains.
The capable environments framework describes the features that matter. They cluster into a few groups, and none of them require anything exotic. That’s part of the point.
Positive social interactions. People need frequent, warm, predictable interaction with the people supporting them. Not just task-based contact, “time for your shower”, but genuine engagement. In houses where interaction is scarce, behaviour often becomes the most reliable way to get it. If you’ve read our article on the four functions of behaviour, you’ll recognise this as the social interaction function being fed by environmental scarcity.
Support for communication. The environment adapts to how the person communicates, not the other way around. Staff know the person’s communication methods, and information is presented in ways the person understands. The practice guide makes the same demand of the assessment process itself.
Support to participate in meaningful activity. Empty time is one of the most reliable setting events for behaviour there is. A capable environment offers real activity, chosen by the person, at the right level of support, spread through the day. Meaningful is the key word. Sitting in a room while an activity happens nearby doesn’t count.
Consistent and predictable support. People do better when they know what’s happening, who’s coming, and what today looks like. Routines, effective transitions, warning before change. Predictability is regulation you can build into a roster.
Encouragement of independence and choice. The person makes real decisions about their own life: what to eat, what to wear, how to spend time, who to spend it with. Environments that decide everything for a person create exactly the conditions where behaviour becomes the only available way to exercise any control over their own life.
Skilled, supported staff. Capable environments need capable teams. Staff who understand the person, who are trained in the plan, and who are themselves supported by their organisation. The practice guide asks assessments to examine exactly this: whether support workers have the skills, knowledge and resources to support the person well, and whether they’re supported to engage in training.
Attention to health and the physical environment. Pain and untreated health conditions drive behaviour. So do noise, crowding, heat and spaces that don’t suit the person’s sensory needs. A capable environment treats healthcare access and the physical setting as tools for behaviour support.
None of these features are clinical interventions. They’re qualities of ordinary good support. That’s exactly why they get overlooked.
Why this changes how assessment works.
High-quality PBS requires that assessments be comprehensive and consider the biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors that contribute to behaviour. It’s important to ask direct environmental questions. What do interactions with the person look like? Are they frequent and positive? Do staff know how to communicate with the person? Do support workers have the necessary skills, knowledge and resources? Does the person’s living arrangement suit their needs? Did they choose where they live, and who they live with?
Think about what that means. The environment is not background information in an assessment. It is a subject of the assessment. A quality behaviour support assessment effectively audits the capability of the environments a person lives in, and the resulting plan should include strategies that change those environments, not just strategies aimed at the person.
The guide calls this systems change, and it says something quietly radical: problems don’t belong to any one person but exist between people.
Using the lens, wherever you sit.
The practical power of the capable environments idea is that anyone can use it. You don’t need clinical training to look at a support setting through this lens.
If you’re a support coordinator, use it when something isn’t working. Before concluding a participant “needs more behaviour support hours”, ask the environmental questions. Is there anything to do all day? Does anyone there know how the person communicates? How many different staff passed through last fortnight? Sometimes the answer isn’t more clinical input. It’s a better environment for the clinical input to land in.
If you’re a provider, use it as an honest self-audit. Walk into your own service and count. How many positive interactions in an hour? How much meaningful activity happened today? How many of today’s staff know this person well? The features of capable environments are countable, and counting them tells you where behaviour is coming from before an incident report ever does.
If you’re a family member, trust what you notice. When you visit and the house feels warm, busy and communicative, those are measurable protective factors. When it feels silent and empty, you’re allowed to name that as a concern, because the research is on your side.
Behaviour support hours are spent well in capable environments and spent poorly in incapable ones. The environment decides the return on every other investment.
Final words.
The capable environments concept takes the oldest instinct in disability services, “this person’s behaviour needs fixing”, and turns it around: this environment needs building. The NDIS Commission has now written that turn into its assessment expectations, and the research suggests it’s where lasting change actually comes from.
The features are almost embarrassingly ordinary. Interaction, communication, activity, predictability, choice, skilled staff, health, a decent physical space. Nothing on that list requires new science. All of it requires intent.
If you’re looking at a support environment and wondering whether it’s part of the problem, that’s exactly the kind of conversation we’re happy to have.
From the Insight PBS team to yours 🙂
Resources
McGill et al. (2020), Capable Environments, Tizard Learning Disability Review
Read the practice guide: NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Behaviour Support Assessment, including Functional Behaviour Assessment: Practice Guide (2026)
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