Published on: August 27, 2025
A NABITA Tip of the Week by Tim Cason, M.Ed.; Vice President, NABITA; Senior Consultant, TNG
This Tip of the Week focuses on one of the most essential and sometimes overlooked elements of Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT)/CARE Team work: documentation. In this two-part resource, we will first explore why documentation is so critical to effective, ethical, and coordinated case management. In the next installment, we will offer practical strategies to help teams document well, using clear, consistent, and legally sound approaches.
NABITA provides BIT Standards containing 21 benchmarks that serve as proactive guidance for BITs to develop the most effective approaches for supporting individuals, preventing harm, and enhancing safety in their educational communities. As we recommend in Standard 18: Recordkeeping, “The team uses an electronic data management system to keep records of all referrals and cases.” First, let’s discuss why that matters.
Why is Documentation Critical?
Effective documentation is one of the most powerful tools for BIT/CARE Teams to support safety, fairness, and collaboration. It allows teams to operate with confidence, withstand scrutiny, and ensure that people receive the help they need. Here’s why it matters:
Documentation promotes accountability, safety, and continuity. It captures who did what, when, and why, not to assign blame, but to ensure clarity, follow-through, and team responsibility. When team members are out or leave the organization, clear records allow others to step in without losing critical information. Strong documentation also supports safety planning by identifying behavioral patterns and escalation longitudinally over time, allowing for early intervention before crises escalate.
Good documentation mitigates liability and strengthens legal defensibility. When a crisis occurs or a decision is challenged, the first questions are often: “What did the organization know, and what did it do about it?” Without documentation, it becomes nearly impossible to demonstrate that the team acted appropriately or at all. Neutral, behavior-focused records show that decisions were made in a timely and informed manner based on observable facts and the information available at the time. This record is often the strongest protection a team has in high-risk situations.
Documentation aligns with national best practices. Professional organizations, including NABITA, the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP), and the U.S. Secret Service, emphasize documentation as a core function of behavioral intervention and threat assessment. Documenting our work ensures alignment with ethical, team-based, and data-informed standards. It also prepares teams for audits, grant reporting, and external reviews by demonstrating transparency, impact, and organizational integrity.
It makes work replicable and teachable. Behavioral intervention work is complex and can span days, weeks, months, or even years. Without clear records, valuable insight into what worked or what did not can be lost. Documentation allows future team members to retrace decision-making and build on those efforts instead of starting from scratch. It also supports training and onboarding by providing real case examples and showing how decisions were made, strengthening team capacity and institutional knowledge.
Documentation helps reduce bias and protects equity. Inconsistent documentation, where some decisions are recorded and others are not, can create a perception of subjectivity, favoritism, or discrimination. Even when actions are well-intentioned, the absence of a written rationale can lead to claims of unequal treatment. Documentation helps teams apply a consistent decision-making process, protect individuals from arbitrary action, and protect the organization from reputational and legal harm. It is a mechanism for fairness and ethical accountability.
Finally, documentation helps teams navigate the unpredictable nature of human behavior. Even the best-trained teams cannot prevent every incident. The goal of BIT/CARE work is not to control every outcome, but to respond ethically and responsibly with the information available at the time. Good documentation makes that possible. It allows teams to defend their actions, explain their reasoning, and operate with confidence, even when outcomes are uncertain.
In our next Tip of the Week, we will explore how to document effectively. We will also offer practical, clear strategies that are aligned with your team’s mission and values.
Expand your expertise with NABITA’s BIT Standards and Best Practices, or enhance your documentation skills through our BIT and Case Management Recordkeeping and Documentation Workshop.