Mr Andy Chia1, Mr Hugh Nehrybecki1, Ms Natalie Wilson1, Ms Jessica Gormley1
1Problematic Behaviour Support Services, Richmond, Australia
Biography:
Jessica Gormley is a forensic psychologist, PhD candidate and founder and Director of Problematic Behaviour Support Services, where she leads a specialist forensic and clinical team who are as passionate as they are talented. Her doctoral research challenges prevailing approaches to the classification and differentiation of sexual offenders, examining the implications for theory, assessment and treatment. Jessica brings a clear, practical and evidence-informed perspective to complex forensic work. She is particularly committed to developing innovative, responsivity-focused forensic services that turn evidence into meaningful practice and better outcomes.
Abstract:
Forensic behaviour support in Australia is not evidence-free; it is evidence-fragmented.
Positive Behaviour Support, mandated in National Disability Insurance Scheme behaviour support, is rights-based but was not designed to address offending. The Risk-Need-Responsivity framework has decades of evidence for reducing such offending but was not designed for delivery through disability support systems.
The failure to integrate the disability and justice systems produces plans that either control immediate behaviour without reducing future harm, or manage risk through restrictive, inaccessible approaches disconnected from everyday life.
This symposium presents the Forensic Behaviour Support model, a proposed Australian framework, across four linked presentations.
The first defines this two-systems problem and the model's core architecture. Positive Behaviour Support provides the rights-based foundation, while risk, need and responsivity are addressed concurrently from first contact rather than deferred to sequential stages.
The second presents the assessment architecture. Functional assessment, structured professional judgement and forensic needs mapping run in parallel, synthesised into a dual formulation of behavioural function, criminogenic drivers and barriers to change.
The third addresses intervention, matching intensity to risk, targeting criminogenic need, with therapeutic modalities positioned as responsivity tools rather than substitutes for rehabilitation.
The fourth confronts the risk the model creates, considering whether forensic practice can remain person-centred, or whether integration inevitably bends support toward control.
Together, the four presentations put forward Forensic Behaviour Support as a model built for this population rather than borrowed from adjacent ones, one that treats public safety and human rights as simultaneous obligations.