Irina Aydemir

culturally responsive, holistic, person-centred

compassionate, curious, warm

I came to Positive Behaviour Support after more than a decade working inside mental health and complex care, where I saw over and over how much changes when someone takes the time to understand why a behaviour is happening rather than simply trying to stop it. Getting to know someone properly, learning what their world looks and feels like from the inside, talking with the people who know them best, and then building support around the individual rather than the diagnosis. I also like that this work asks us to check whether it is actually helping. We set goals we can measure. We pay attention to what the data show, and we change the plan when it isn’t working rather than waiting until that becomes obvious.

I migrated to Australia from Ukraine over 25 years ago and work in English, Ukrainian and Russian. That has made me attentive to the ways culture, language and family shape how a person expresses distress and what they feel able to ask for. I try to understand behaviour before I interpret it, and to ask rather than assume. Progress often looks small from the outside: an easier morning, a calmer week, someone doing something that was out of reach a few months ago and being part of that is why I do this work.