Suren

About Suren

Suren is Constellation's behaviour support practitioner and social worker, working primarily with NDIS participants where behaviours of concern are getting in the way of life at home, at school or in the community. His caseload often involves clients other services have struggled to keep engaged, and his style is unhurried, practical and respectful of how hard everyone in the system is already trying.

He holds two postgraduate qualifications, a Master of Social Work and a Master of Physiotherapy, which is an unusual combination. The social work spine gives him a strong systems lens: family, school, support providers, housing, culture and community. The physiotherapy background means he isn't thrown by physical health, pain, mobility or sensory layers that often sit under behaviour.

Suren works across functional behaviour assessment, behaviour support planning, training of support workers and families, and the slow work of replacing restrictive practices with everyday, dignified strategies. His plans are written to be used, with clear, plain-language guidance for the people in the participant's day-to-day life.

His work covers greater Melbourne via mobile visits, telehealth for participants in regional Victoria and interstate, and selective national outreach where a complex case needs his particular skill set. He works closely with the rest of the Constellation team, especially the OTs, psychologists and speech pathologists, where behaviour is rarely a single-discipline problem.

Common reasons people come to Suren include functional behaviour assessments, positive behaviour support plans, reducing restrictive practices, support worker training, and complex cases involving overlapping mental health, disability and family dynamics.

Approach

Suren is culturally responsive, systems-aware and practical. He believes good behaviour support is mostly about understanding why a behaviour makes sense to the person doing it, and changing the environment around them, not just the person.