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About Our Founder – Kevin Ainsley

Kevin is a qualified social worker (Dip.SW.) with well-established practice-based capabilities in both children and adult services. This has included roles as a residential social worker, registered manager, Head Teacher, and Director of one of the UK’s pre-eminent providers of training in behaviour support.

Kevin is a committed lifelong learner and in addition to the DipSW holds a BA in Professional and Social Studies, a PG Cert. in Applied Behaviour Analysis, and an MSc. In Positive Approaches to Challenging Behaviour. Kevin was also trained to level 1 in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy by Dan Hughes in 2022.

Kevin has a strong commitment to promoting proactive approaches to behaviours that challenge underpinned by human rights-based values. His stated primary motivation in delivering services is to produce measurable improvements in quality of life outcomes and reductions in restrictive practices for vulnerable/traumatised children and adults.

Kevin has a particular passion and proven expertise in working alongside organisations to assist them in reducing restrictive practices. His systematic review on this subject was presented at a BILD Research Conference and The SEAMEO conference on special education needs in Bangkok.

He is also a member of BILD’s Centre for the Advancement of Positive Behaviour Support coaches’ team.

Kevin is a keen traveller and spent ten years in SE Asia in the education sector. He also provided awareness and fundraising support to The Mercy Centre (for homeless children) and the Kevorkian Foundation (Home for orphans with HIV) in Bangkok.

Outside of work Kevin loves watching his son Isaac play footy and travelling up and down the country watching Isaac’s older brother Sam swim competitively. Movies, reading and practising Iaido keep him out of trouble for much of the rest of the time.

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Mission

Options 360 was brought into being with the singular ambition of improving quality of life outcomes for people whose opportunities are currently limited by aspects of their behaviour which others may perceive as challenging.
The vehicle for this is the provision of training in Positive Behaviour Support to front line staff.
We are committed to supporting staff in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to provide socially valid and ethically sound support strategies.
Entry-level courses assume no prior knowledge of PBS and are designed and delivered in an accessible and engaging format.
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Positive Behaviour Support

We provide PBS based training and consultancy services for staff supporting children and adults whose lives are affected by:

A learning disability, autism, acquired brain injury, or other neurological condition which affects their behaviour

Or

Challenging behaviour linked to disordered attachments, toxic stress due to past trauma, abuse, neglect or poor caregiving

    Hand writing Proactive vs Reactive concept about the importance to act in advance to deal with an expected problem, change or difficulty.

    Proactive Planning

    The emphasis in all our programmes is on Proactive Primary prevention. We also teach reactive strategies, this may include where absolutely necessary the teaching of non-aversive breakaway techniques and least intrusive restrictive physical interventions. All our techniques are risked assessed, compliant with the BILD Code of Practice (2014) and consistent with the core values of PBS.
    Male hand placing last piece of a cube of colour grass field.

    Fixing Challenging Environments

    By emphasising the key messages of PBS Staff will leave our sessions understanding that the task at hand for them is less about fixing ‘challenging’ people and more about understanding and fixing challenging environments which often give rise to challenging behaviours in the first instance.
    Group of young boys and girls using devices, talking and smiling, sitting against white brick wall

    Audit

    In keeping with the BILD code of practice all training is subject to initial audit to ensure that it matches the needs of your staff team and service users.
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    People Matter

    Options 360 is a ‘People Matter’ organisation. We aspire to treat all customers, end users of our services and employees fairly, equitably and with dignity and respect.

    Our History

    Options 360 was established in November 2015. It is a young and vibrant organisation enthused by the possibilities that the dissemination of PBS offers people who struggle to regulate their behaviour and those that support them.

    The founder, Kevin Ainsley has a long history (30 years) of working in social care and educational settings (open and secure), both in the UK and abroad. Challenging behaviour has been a key feature in most of these settings.

    He is a qualified social worker and also holds an MSc in Positive Behaviour Support. He also completed the British Institute of Learning Disabilities ‘Centre for the Advancement of Positive Behaviour Support’ Coaches programme and is a fervent advocate of CAPBS mission.

    In 2010 Kevin was recruited by one of the UK’s pre-eminent providers of training in the ‘management’ of challenging behaviour. As director of development he was responsible for developing and modernising the course content shifting it towards more positive approaches to challenging behaviour.

    During 2010-2013 Kevin undertook an MSc in PBS at Cardiff University. This was revelatory. Convinced of the efficacy of PBS he became inspired to be part of the growing movement to disseminate PBS as best practice. Kevin’s thesis on reducing the use of manual restraint was awarded a distinction and it’s findings were presented at BILD’s Research Conference in 2016.

    These experiences culminated in Kevin setting up Options 360 to concentrate exclusively on PBS based training and consultancy.

    It’s a passion for improving quality of life outcomes for service users, carers and families who find their lives limited and marginalised by the effects of challenging behaviour that drives Options 360 PBS training courses.

    Kevin also has a firm commitment to ‘People Matter’ principles.

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