Our Services
How do Otium’s support programmes help autistic adults with learning disabilities?
Our programmes are carefully adapted to the needs of the individual, so no two programmes will look the same. However, areas where we frequently support include:
Building skills to work towards finding stable, long-term supported employment.
We work closely with the young people to source placements in their local area that will build long-term employability skills.
We are person-centred and ambitious about sourcing work that the young people work with will really enjoy. We’re serious about ensuring that your son or daughter flourishes through building on their current interests and skills, and getting to know people in their local community.
Whenever possible, we aim to gradually fade back support from Behaviour Support staff over time to support your son or daughter in becoming as independent in their work as possible.
Setting up individualised systems and supports at home or in care placements.
After ageing out of education, autistic adults often miss out on receiving support that is appropriately tailored to them – and we’re determined to change that.
To do this, we are proud to offer a service that draws together a broad toolbox of strategies from different practices. Many adult services simply lack the specialism or funding to do this, and this approach is what makes Otium’s services unique.
This allows us to offer a truly holistic programme that focuses on best practice. These are designed to meet your son or daughter’s specific needs and to be as straightforward as possible for families and carers to work with.
We offer many years’ valuable experience with a range of disciplines to build these systems. We can combine strategies that are used by Positive Behavioural Support practitioners, Speech and Language Therapists, and Occupational Therapists.
Consultations and assessments which will identify the outcomes that are most important to the young person.
Our duty of care towards our clients is always central in our decision-making process. As well as safeguarding, this also includes putting young people’s personal interests and goals at the front and centre of what we do.
All our programmes usually begin with an assessment to establish your son or daughter’s preferences, skills, and where they need the most support. Again, unfortunately many adult services simply aren’t equipped to do this.
This process means that, from day one, we focus on pivotal missing skills that can be targeted to have the greatest possible impact on a young person’s progress in multiple areas.
For example, if somebody struggled with communicating when they felt frustrated, a key goal would be developing strategies enabling them to clearly express their wants and needs. Building the programme from here would create a solid basis for this person to maximise their progress in many other areas.
“when targeted allow for improved functioning across critical settings”
These assessments can also be invaluable if you are a parent applying to your local authority for funding, either with Otium or with another service provider. Having this type of evidence makes it easier to show exactly what level of support a person needs, and can strengthen a case for funding or additional support.
Providing empathetic support and advice for managing behaviours that challenge.
Otium is experienced with supporting young people with a broad range of behaviours that challenge.
We use ‘behaviours that challenge’ to describe any socially unconventional behaviour poses a risk to a person or those around them or limits their access to the places they want to go due to its frequency, duration, or intensity. This can include behaviours like aggression and self-injury.
We understand the impact that these behaviours can have on autistic people themselves as well as their families or carers. around our clients’ well-being and helping them get their needs met in safe, healthy ways
Our staff have supported numerous young people with a range of intense behaviours that challenge, and we have successfully helped many clients with reducing these behaviours.
Our strategy is based around teaching replacement behaviours. This process involves identifying the functions of these behaviours, and then teaching and motivating clients to use alternative ways of communicating or responding.
We use carefully designed interventions that acknowledge what the person wants or feels, and give them a safe, supportive space to learn how they can manage this in different ways.
We also focus on developing effective methods of de-escalation. Safety is, of course, paramount in our work and Otium is dedicated to ensuring the wellbeing of the young person is always at the forefront of what we do.
All our programmes are:
Data-driven – giving you clarity and peace of mind that your son or daughter is learning and thriving.
This allows us to ensure that we know exactly what is effective, and what isn’t.
We measure progress carefully so that you can see exactly how your son or daughter is learning. To do this, we use single-case designs.
This involves carefully measuring their progress in each area of their programme. We will then track improvement in each skill against their starting level, or ‘baseline’. For each target, we will be closely tracking their day-to-day progress.
For example, we will keep track of things like the frequency and durations of behaviours that challenge, or the precise level of support needed every time a client does a self-care or a work experience task.
We can swiftly identify and change anything that is not working well, meaning clients can make measurable progress more quickly than they might with other types of programmes.
This can be particularly valuable for things like funding applications, where it’s key to be able to illustrate precisely why continued funding is important for the client’s progress.
Informed by the science of Behaviour Analysis – ensuring each and every aspect of your programme is backed by experts in behavioural science
All our work is supported by the academic literature underpinning effective behavioural intervention.
Your behaviour support plan will be grounded in up-to-date, high-quality research. We follow guidance and best practice from the Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis (JABA), which is the most comprehensive, stringently peer-reviewed journal in the field.
Although Otium’s work is a mixture of behavioural science and other disciplines rather than full ABA, we ensure that all our methods and services have expert knowledge of behaviour analysis at their core. We operate under the guidelines issued by the BACB (Behaviour Analyst Certification Board) and the UK institution, UKSBA (UK Society of Behaviour Analysts).
We use these as a solid foundation for providing efficient, results-driven plans fitted to the individual's needs, preferences, skills and goals.
You can read more about the science of Behaviour Analysis here.
Personalised, person-centred, and client-focused – we’ll listen carefully to your family’s needs and experiences throughout the process
Creating an effective support plan is about more than simply tracking progress. Although data is an important metric, we believe that building solid, trusting client relationships is the key cornerstone of everything we do.
We take time to get to know your son or daughter well. We will gather a holistic view of their lifestyle, goals, interests, and hopes for their future in order to create programmes that they will genuinely enjoy and thrive in.
We will always ensure that the client is our primary focus and that their best interests are represented in every stage of decision-making.
Make an enquiry to start building a behaviour support plan with Otium.
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.
Your programme with Otium can be funded by your local authority, or you can hire us privately.
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.