Season 6, Episode 4
Compassion first: Sarah Kilby on understanding behaviour differently
What if, instead of asking “How do we stop this behaviour?”, we asked “What might this person be experiencing?”
That question sits at the heart of MacIntyre’s latest podcast episode, featuring Inclusive Behaviour Manager Sarah Kilby.
In a thoughtful and personal conversation, Sarah explains MacIntyre’s compassion-first approach to Positive Behaviour Support (PBS), challenging the idea that behaviour should simply be controlled or managed. Instead, she describes PBS as understanding the whole person, their experiences, relationships, communication, environment and unmet needs.
Drawing on decades of experience in social care, as well as her own lived experience of neurodiversity, Sarah shares how behaviour can often be the most effective way someone has found to communicate or meet a need.
The episode also explores MacIntyre’s Homes Not Hospitals work and the life-changing impact of helping people move from secure settings into homes and communities of their own.
Sarah says: “When a flower doesn’t thrive, fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”
The conversation offers a powerful reminder that small changes such as trust, curiosity, relationships and understanding can make an extraordinary difference.
Listen now to hear Sarah discuss compassion-first PBS, “gloriously ordinary” lives, and why great support starts with seeing the person, not the behaviour.
