About Us > Employment Opportunities > RJP - Independent Living Services Instructor

Realistic Job Preview

Independent Living Services Instructor

Supporting People with Challenging Behaviors and Using Behavior Support Plans

Employment

You may support someone with challenging behaviors. A person you support may become agitated with you or raise their voice to you. They could cross your personal boundaries by asking personal questions or asking you to do something that you are not comfortable with.

For many potential new ILS Instructors, this sounds a little frightening. Yet, with training, many new ILS Instructors with no prior experience learn how to prevent people from displaying challenging behavior. They also learn to respond to people in a way that helps people become or stay calm.

You will not be asked to work with people who have challenging behaviors without knowledge or specific training on how to prevent these situations and how to handle them when they occur.

Over time you may decide that you really enjoy working with people with challenging behavior because you will play an active role in teaching them better communication and living skills, which should cause their challenging behaviors to diminish. Many people with disabilities who display challenging behaviors are able to change with support from an ILS Instructor.

REPETITIVE BEHAVIORS

John frequently swears when telling stories or when expressing emotion. He curses both when he is upset and when he is happy about something.

John goes with his ILS Instructor, Janet, to the grocery store. While he is telling a story he starts to swear. Janet asks John to pay attention to his choice of words and offers substitutions of other words for John to use. Janet also reminds John that there could be children around and how important it is to be careful about what language he chooses to use. John understands the importance of watching his language.

John and Janet go to the library to research local events and he begins to swear as he is telling a story. Janet again reminds John about not swearing in public. John tells Janet that he forgot and stops swearing. John forgets to watch the language but with a reminder from Janet he remembers and changes his language.