https://www.eleva8behavioursupport.com/

Eleva8 Mentoring, Newcastle (2026)

07/09/2026

📱 “MUM! DAD! LOOK AT ME!” 👀

They jump off the couch.

They show you a drawing you’ve already seen five times.

They do a dance that makes absolutely no sense.

They tell you a story that takes 10 minutes to explain something that could have taken 30 seconds.

And all the while, you might be looking at your phone thinking…

“Yep, I’m watching.”

But here’s what I want parents to understand:

When a child repeatedly says “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” — most of the time, it isn’t really about what they’re doing.

What they’re actually asking is:

❤️ “Do you see me?”
❤️ “Am I important to you?”
❤️ “Do I have your attention?”
❤️ “Do I matter?”
❤️ “Love me.”

From an attachment and behaviour support perspective, these small interactions matter enormously.

Every time you put the phone down, make eye contact, smile and genuinely engage, you are giving your child more than attention.

You are helping build secure attachment.

You are teaching their developing brain:

🧠 When I reach out, someone responds.
🧠 My needs matter.
🧠 The people I love are emotionally available to me.
🧠 Relationships are safe.
🧠 I am worth someone’s time.

And those beliefs can follow a child well beyond childhood.

This doesn’t mean parents need to give their children their undivided attention every second of the day. That isn’t realistic or healthy.

But we do need to recognise those little bids for connection when they happen.

Because to you, it might just be another cartwheel.

To them, it might be:

“Dad, are you watching?”

And underneath that:

“Dad, do you see me?”

Sometimes one of the most powerful things we can do for a child’s behaviour, emotional regulation and development is incredibly simple:

📱 Put the phone down.
👀 Look at them.
😊 Smile.
❤️ Be genuinely interested.

Because “look at me” is very often another way of saying “love me.”

ChildDevelopment ConnectionBeforeCorrection TraumaInformed EmotionalRegulation ParentingSupport BehaviourSupportPractitioner

04/09/2026

🧠 Why Behaviour Support Practitioners need to understand Jean Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development

One of the most valuable things we can understand as Behaviour Support Practitioners is that chronological age does not automatically tell us how a person thinks, processes information or understands the world around them.

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development describes four stages:

1️⃣ Sensorimotor Stage (Birth–2 years)
Learning occurs primarily through movement, senses and interaction with the immediate environment.

2️⃣ Preoperational Stage (2–7 years)
Thinking becomes more symbolic, but reasoning is still developing. Understanding another person’s perspective, cause and effect, and complex consequences can be difficult.

3️⃣ Concrete Operational Stage (7–11 years)
Logical thinking develops, particularly when information is concrete, visible and connected to real experiences. Abstract concepts can still be challenging.

4️⃣ Formal Operational Stage (12+ years)
The capacity for abstract thinking, hypothetical reasoning, future planning and considering multiple possible outcomes develops.

Why does this matter in Behaviour Support?

Because we can easily place expectations on someone based on their chronological age rather than their actual developmental and cognitive capacity.

We might expect someone to:
👉 Understand long-term consequences
👉 Reflect on why they behaved a certain way
👉 Consider another person’s perspective
👉 Understand abstract rules
👉 Predict future outcomes
👉 Regulate themselves using strategies that require complex reasoning

But what if they don’t yet have the developmental capacity to consistently do those things?

Suddenly, what looks like “defiance”, “not listening” or “refusing to take responsibility” may need to be understood very differently.

Good Behaviour Support isn’t just about understanding behaviour.

It’s about understanding the person, their developmental capacity, their environment and what the behaviour is communicating.

02/09/2026

🧠 CONNECTION BEFORE CORRECTION 🤝

Sometimes a good Behaviour Support Practitioner might look like they’re doing “nothing” for the first few months.

They’re having a coffee. ☕
Going for a drive. 🚗
Talking about footy. 🏉
Going to the gym. 🏋️
Having a laugh.
And most importantly — listening.

But this isn’t doing nothing.

This is building connection.

Before I can expect someone to trust my advice, talk openly about what’s happening for them, learn new skills or try a different way of responding — they need to trust me.

You can write the best Behaviour Support Plan in the world, but if the participant doesn’t trust the person delivering it, you’ve already lost one of the most important pieces.

Good behaviour support isn’t about walking in and immediately trying to “fix” behaviour.

It’s about understanding the person behind the behaviour.

Connection creates trust.
Trust creates safety.
Safety creates engagement.
Engagement creates the opportunity for change. 💡

So if it looks like your practitioner is “just hanging out” with a participant in those early months, look a little closer.

They may actually be doing some of the most important work in the entire behaviour support process.

🤝 Connection before correction. Always.

DisabilitySupport BehaviourSupportPractitioner TraumaInformed PersonCentred MentalHealth Neurodiversity SupportWorkers AlliedHealth BuildingTrust

29/08/2026

⚙️ The 4 Cogs of Behaviour Support ⚙️

Think of a Behaviour Support Plan as a service manual for your child or client. 📘

It helps everyone understand the person — their needs, behaviours, triggers, communication, what works, what doesn’t, and how we can respond consistently to support better outcomes.

But even the best Behaviour Support Plan becomes a waste of paper and time if everyone isn’t following it.

I often explain this using the 4 Cogs Analogy:

⚙️ Support Workers
⚙️ Allied Health Professionals
⚙️ Family / Carers
⚙️ Behaviour Support Practitioner

For a machine to work properly, all four cogs need to turn together in the same direction.

If three cogs are moving one way while another pushes against them, you create friction and eventually the system stops working.

Behaviour support is no different.

If support workers follow the BSP, but family responds differently, allied health has another approach, or the practitioner isn’t communicating with the wider team, the person receives mixed messages and inconsistent support.

Consistency doesn’t mean everyone has to be identical. It means everyone understands the plan, communicates and works toward the same goals using the same overall approach. 🤝

A BSP isn’t something we write, upload and put on a shelf.

It’s the service manual — and it only works when the whole team uses it.

⚙️ Four cogs. One direction. One team. Better outcomes.

FamilySupport Teamwork Consistency BehaviourSupportPractitioner PersonCentredSupport

25/08/2026

Behaviour Support Practitioner | Complex & Forensic Support | Child, Youth & Disability Services

I bring over 12 years of professional experience across the Out-of-Home Care (OOHC), disability and residential care sectors, working extensively with children, young people and adults presenting with complex behavioural, psychosocial and trauma-related needs.

My professional experience includes:

• Behaviour Support Practitioner
• Operations Manager – Intensive Therapeutic Care (ITC)
• Manager of a restrictive-practice locked down residential facility supporting some of NSW’s most vulnerable children and young people
• Therapeutic Specialist
• Case Manager
• Residential House Manager
• Youth Worker
• More than 10 years of direct experience within residential care environments

Qualifications & Professional Training:

• Bachelor of Human Services – Australian Catholic University
• Diploma of Community Services
• CANS Assessment Accredited
• Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) Accredited
• Needs Based Framework Accredited
• Reactive Attachment Disorder Training
• Qualified Personal Trainer

Lived Experience:

Alongside my professional qualifications, I bring significant lived experience that strongly informs the way I work with people experiencing complex challenges.

My lived experience includes growing up within significant family dysfunction and domestic violence, experiencing childhood trauma, involvement with the criminal justice system from a young age and into adulthood, navigating personal mental health challenges, and having close family experience of disability and complex behaviours.

These experiences do not replace professional knowledge or evidence-based practice; they strengthen my ability to understand the people I support, build genuine rapport and recognise that behaviour often makes sense when understood within the context of a person’s history, environment and experiences.

My approach combines formal education, extensive frontline and leadership experience, and lived experience. I focus on practical, person-centred, trauma-informed and evidence-based behaviour support, particularly for individuals with complex and forensic presentations.

23/08/2026

🧠 What Makes Me Good at Behaviour Support?

Do I have two years of TAFE study? 🎓 Yes.
Do I have four years of university study and additional professional training? 📚 Yes.

But that’s not what makes me good at Behaviour Support.

What makes me good at this work is being me.

I grew up around childhood trauma and dysfunction. I engaged in criminal behaviour from a young age and into adulthood. I’ve experienced my own mental health challenges. I’ve lived alongside family members with disabilities and complex behaviours. I then spent 10 years working in the Out of Home Care system with some of the most complex young people and families.

Those experiences taught me things a textbook simply can’t. 💭

They taught me how to read a room. How to build trust with people who don’t trust easily. How to understand that behaviour always has context. How to stay calm when things become chaotic. And importantly, how to separate the person from the behaviour. 🤝

My education gave me the theory, frameworks and clinical knowledge. 🎓
My life gave me perspective, resilience and an understanding of people. 💪

That combination means I don’t need to put on a professional persona when I walk into a session.

I can just be myself.

I also approach Behaviour Support from a “what needs to be done?” perspective. 🎯 I care deeply about the people I work with, but I don’t become emotionally attached to the case. I look at the evidence, identify what is maintaining the behaviour and focus on practical changes that can genuinely improve the person’s life.

Qualifications matter. Experience matters. But knowing how to bring both together is what makes the difference. 🧠💙

LivedExperience TraumaInformed ComplexBehaviour DisabilitySupport OutOfHomeCare Eleva8 Eleva8BehaviourSupport

17/08/2026

🎉 ELEVA8 IS OFFICIALLY A REGISTERED NDIS PROVIDER FOR BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT 🎉

My career started in the Out of Home Care sector, where I spent around 10 years working across roles including Youth Worker, House Manager, Caseworker, Case Manager and Senior Manager. For the past 6 years, my work has increasingly focused on Behaviour Support.

I try to operate as a high-performance practitioner. I don’t want to become a “copy and paste” practitioner where every participant receives the same strategies, the same language and a slightly modified version of somebody else’s Behaviour plan

One thing people who work with me quickly learn is that I am prepared to have difficult conversations.

That might be with a participant, family member, support provider, Support Coordinator, allied health professional or another stakeholder.

I don’t base my practice around keeping everyone happy, keeping a referral or protecting an income stream.

If I believe something isn’t working, I’ll say it. If I believe we need to change direction, I’ll advocate for it.

If I believe somebody needs to hear something uncomfortable because it could improve the participant’s outcome, I’m prepared to have that conversation even if it puts me offside.

After 16 years in this space, I’ve seen what happens when professionals avoid difficult conversations. I’ve also seen what happens when everybody works in isolation, responsibility gets passed around and nobody takes ownership of the bigger picture.

That’s why I like to take ownership of my cases.

Experience has taught me a lot about what works, what doesn’t work and what needs to happen to create meaningful outcomes. I want to bring the team together, identify the barriers, make decisions based on evidence and get things moving.

Does that mean I’m always right? Absolutely not. Does it mean I’m always the easiest person to work with? Probably not. But I will listen. I will change my position when the evidence tells me I’m wrong.

And I will always be prepared to advocate strongly when I believe it is in the best interests of the person I’m supporting. At the end of the day, my work isn’t underpinned by keeping everyone comfortable.

07/08/2026

🚨Some days the office looks a little different🚨

As a Behaviour Support Practitioner, today meant visiting a client in a maximum-security correctional centre. No laptop, no notebook, no phone. Just the knowledge in your head and the rest of your session written on your hand because nothing else is allowed through the gates.

Behaviour support isn’t always delivered in homes, schools or the community. Sometimes it’s delivered behind prison walls, helping people understand their behaviour, build insight and work towards a better future.

Every environment is different, but the goal is always the same: creating meaningful change, one conversation at a time.

29/07/2026

🧠 Understanding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disability caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol. It affects the way the brain develops, resulting in permanent differences in brain structure and function.

FASD impacts every person differently, but it commonly affects:

• Executive functioning (planning, organisation, decision-making and problem-solving).
• Memory and learning.
• Attention and concentration.
• Impulse control.
• Emotional regulation.
• Processing speed.
• Communication and language.
• Social understanding and judgement.
• Understanding cause and effect.
• Adaptive functioning and everyday living skills.

Because FASD is an invisible disability, many individuals appear capable of tasks that they are neurologically unable to consistently perform. Expectations placed on them may exceed their brain’s capacity, leading to frustration and repeated difficulties.

Behaviours commonly associated with FASD may include:

• Emotional outbursts or rapid mood changes.
• Impulsivity and risk-taking behaviours.
• Difficulty following multi-step instructions.
• Repeating the same mistakes despite previous consequences.
• Forgetting rules, routines or appointments.
• Becoming overwhelmed in busy or demanding environments.
• Difficulty transitioning between activities.
• Social vulnerability, including being easily influenced or manipulated by others.
• Poor understanding of personal boundaries.
• Inconsistent performance, where skills demonstrated one day may not be demonstrated the next.
• Difficulty understanding the long-term consequences of actions.

FASD is estimated to affect thousands of Australians and is one of the leading preventable causes of lifelong disability. Increasing awareness helps families, schools, employers and support services better understand that many behaviours associated with FASD reflect differences in brain function rather than a lack of motivation or intent.

16/07/2026

🔒 Why Incarceration Stops Being the Whole Story: Why Many Men Break the Cycle Between 40 and 50

One of the biggest questions I’m asked is:

“Why do so many men change later in life?”

After years of working with men in the justice system, I’ve seen a common pattern.

For many men who experienced childhood trauma, abuse, neglect, violence or repeated incarceration, lasting change often begins between 40 and 50.

🧠 Trauma changes the developing brain.

When a child grows up in survival mode, the brain prioritises staying safe rather than developing higher-level thinking. The emotional brain becomes dominant, while the prefrontal cortex—responsible for impulse control, planning, decision-making and emotional regulation—can develop more slowly.

Then comes incarceration.

🔒 Prison teaches survival. Hypervigilance, emotional suppression and aggression may help someone survive inside, but they often make life much harder once they’re back in the community.

The hopeful part?

The brain continues to change throughout life. As executive functioning matures and life experience grows, many men begin to pause before reacting, regulate their emotions, think about consequences and choose peace over conflict.

This doesn’t happen because they suddenly become different people.

It happens because they finally have the neurological capacity—and the life experience—to make different choices.

Not everyone changes between 40 and 50, but for many men affected by trauma and institutionalisation, these years become a genuine turning point.

💙 Never assume someone is beyond change. When we stop asking, “What’s wrong with him?” and start asking, “What happened to him?”, we create space for healing, growth and hope.

MensMentalHealth ExecutiveFunction Neuroplasticity BehaviourSupport Rehabilitation SecondChances Healing Hope

Eleva8 Mentoring

07/09/2026

04/09/2026

02/09/2026

29/08/2026

25/08/2026

23/08/2026

17/08/2026

07/08/2026

29/07/2026

16/07/2026

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Listing takedown request