Positive Behaviour Support

Affinity Trust provides Positive Behaviour Support services for children and young people with learning disabilities in Bradford, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester and Wakefield.

The children and young people referred to these services all live at home, and their key workers spend up to 30 hours a week with them – at home, in schools, and in other settings.

The services use the Positive Behaviour Support competency framework. This is a framework for developing an understanding of behaviour that challenges. It is based on an assessment of the social, physical and individual contexts in which the behaviour occurs, and uses this information to develop interventions.

Positive Behaviour Support works by developing the skills of children and those who support them, rather than by using aversive or restrictive interventions. The services use positive measures, like other ways of communicating with children, and changing their environments.

Since January 2018, Affinity Trust’s Positive Behaviour Support service has enabled eight children in Bradford to stay out of residential care, at an overall cost of £210,000 per year. This compares to the £144,000 per year it costs Bradford Council for each child placed in residential care.

Positive Behaviour Support is for families too. It aims to:

improve the children’s and families’ quality of life
enable children to carry on living at home, reducing the risk of them needing specialist residential care
reduce the frequency, intensity and duration of behaviours that challenge displayed by the children
support children’s development of independence and life, social and communication skills
support regular attendance at school and an ongoing place in the education system
help parents become more confident in managing behaviour that challenges
reduce parental stress.

For each child, we agree a maintenance plan with all key stakeholders, enabling withdrawal of the service from the delivery of direct support.

Our Bradford service

This service was jointly commissioned by Bradford Metropolitan District Council and local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups. It’s funded partly by a social investor, and Affinity Trust is paid only if the children and young people stay out of residential care.

In May 2019, the Bradford Positive Behaviour Support service won an Excellence Award from the British Institute of Learning Disabilities.