Welcome. We are Otium.
OBS is a unique service in South-West London for young people and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. We work across a range of settings including education, in the community, and social care.
We offer uniquely personalised programmes, both privately and state-funded, for young people whose support needs might not be suited to the typical schools or placements in their local area.
With many years’ experience working in the SEN education system, we’ve experienced first-hand the barriers that often prevent autistic young people from having the support to build the life that they want and deserve.
We understand the challenges and frustrations that young autistic adults and their families face when searching for suitable support and placements – and this is something we’re serious about changing.
No young person should feel excluded from their community, or struggle to access the help they need to live a happy and healthy life – and this was a key vision when we founded Otium.
In addition to working with the young person directly, we also offer families support with tasks which can often be overwhelming, including preparing documentation, accessing local authority provisions, and making applications.
Ultimately, we are here to offer a professional, adaptable, and empathetic service. Our primary goal? To provide whatever support required to support your son or daughter to grow into a healthy, flourishing adult.
So, How Does This Work?
Using the principles of Behaviour Analysis, we develop effective personalised programmes according to the young person’s needs that can be run from home by a tutor or a trained carer, or implemented around an existing placement.
For parents and carers, as well as building personalised programmes, we offer support with funding applications to local authorities. This can be a stressful and complex process to navigate without help – we strive to make sure you get the very best results without feeling overwhelmed.
We also work with organisations and local authorities, offering a range of services to enhance your services for autistic clients who have complex support needs. This includes designing and implementing programmes or resources, training staff, and complex case or crisis management.
Our service is ambitious. We offer more than a day-to-day care service and our framework goes far beyond what most adult services aim for. We’re determined to see our clients work towards living as independently as possible.
Your programme with Otium can be funded by your local authority, or you can hire us privately. Click here to learn more about specific services.
Our values:
At Otium, we are dedicated to promoting progressive and integrative support models for neurodivergent people with learning disabilities.
There is a critical gap in the UK for young adults as they age out of funded education.
The adult services sector is extremely limited and often more expensive. It rarely offers an exact fit – especially for clients who have complex needs – or can only be partially individualised.
Meanwhile, the process of transitioning into adult education or social care can often be a daunting process.
We decided that it was time to begin bridging this critical gap.
Otium Behaviour Services developed our services with the goal of bringing the right expertise and experience to make truly functional programmes for young adults who would otherwise fall through the gaps in funding and provisions.
So, what does this look like in practice?
The values that drive us are:
Advocating for necessary changes, both on behalf of our individual clients and in public dialogue around autism, neurodivergence, and behaviour analysis.
Promoting and enabling client choice and independence.
Safeguarding the well-being of our clients and staff
Raising awareness around best practice interventions and how to run programmes that are effective and safe.
Dedication to Behavioural Science and its effective practice.
The Science and Our Practice
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Otium Behaviour Services uses the science of Behaviour Analysis. This is the science of the behaviour of all organisms and how they respond to their environments.
Behaviour Analysis strategies are applicable to all people. They are proven to be extremely effective when used properly, and a number of industries, including marketing and professional sports, have been increasingly using its principles to get results.
When they’re used ethically and effectively, Behaviour Analysis methods are effective in helping people with conditions like autism and comorbid learning difficulties to learn new skills and reduce behaviours that challenge.
You’re probably familiar with the concepts of using ‘reinforcement’ to encourage a particular behaviour, or ‘prompting’ to signal to somebody that they should take a particular action. These are good examples of everyday terms that come from the field of Behaviour Analysis.
Behaviour Analysis underpins everything we do and is at the core of all our programmes. However, we also have experience with implementing recommendations from other effective disciplines including…
Applied Behaviour Analysis (known as ABA) is a specific branch of behavioural science. It focuses on studying how behaviour interventions – making changes in an environment to shape behaviours – can impact future behaviours.
Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) is another model of behavioural science which focuses on using only positive reinforcement to encourage behaviours that will be healthier or less harmful for the person.
Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT) focuses on teaching different styles of effective communication.
Occupational Therapy (OT) deals with day-to-day health, particularly physical ability and sensory integration.
Our holistic approach gives us a unique, individualised edge that, unfortunately, many adult placements simply don’t have the resources to provide.
If you’re looking for a placement or support plan that integrates your son or daughter’s educational, social, emotional, sensory, and daily living needs, Otium is well-placed to create a package that draws together expertise from across these disciplines.
We believe that this multidisciplinary approach is the best way of supporting your son or daughter towards the learning outcomes they deserve, whilst also at approaching it in a way that will be enjoyable and rewarding for them.
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These tools we use are carefully designed and adapted to offer the right amount of support for the client, while keeping their happiness and quality of life at the centre of everything we do.
The goal is to strike the right balance between providing structure to ensure success and engagement, whilst also enabling as much independence as possible through systematic support fading and effective teaching procedures.
We teach young people new skills for communication and daily living in a way that is structured to be as natural and manageable for them as possible.
We provide reinforcement – praise and appropriate rewards for example – to motivate clients.
We use systems like visual schedules and choice boards, or High Tech Advanced Augmentative Communication systems that can be valuable tools for autistic adults to make informed, independent decisions in their day-to-day life.
We support and guide our clients towards learning
replacement behaviours where appropriate, to replace the need to use behaviours that challenge.
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For behaviour analysis methods to be effective and ethical, it’s crucial that we make interventions that are reasonable, proportionate, necessary, and in the client’s best interests.
Our mission is to promote and provide progressive, person-centred models of practice that always puts the young person first. We constantly monitor and review our strategies to ensure our practice is as effective and ethical as it can be.
How do we ensure we are as effective and ethical as possible?
We will only intervene where our clients have a stated goal, or if it’s necessary for somebody’s health or well-being. And we will only do so in ways that won’t be distressing or harmful for the client.
Some ways we ensure this include…
We will never discourage a client from engaging in self-stimulatory behaviour that isn’t harmful. Everybody’s needs are different, and whether you tap your leg in a classroom or click pens during meetings, we all have behaviours we use to regulate ourselves when we need to. Of course, we live in a world where some behaviours that aren’t seen as ‘conventional’ can sometimes draw unwanted attention, and if it is appropriate or necessary, we can explore options of replacement behaviours. But, ultimately, we firmly believe in an individual’s right to engage in any stims that are healthy and appropriate..
We only promote using literature supported behavioural interventions like Functional Communication Training if they are appropriate for the client’s current skillset and if appropriate types of differential reinforcement can be used alongside it. In other words, we won’t implement a strategy that could be too complex or that causes client frustration, or where a client won’t feel fully engaged with or motivated by the process.
We will work at a pace that is determined by the young person’s rate of progress, providing targeted reinforcement that they will find regarding. We will encourage them to adapt skills in a way that suits them, or using supports like communication aids wherever they will be useful and appropriate.