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Children’s Positive Behaviour Support Service – changes to service offer coming in Spring 2026
Published
Gloucestershire County Council are pleased to share that in conjunction with the Affinity Trust we will be making changes to the current Children’s Positive Behaviour Support Service. These changes will allow us to re-shape and broaden the scope of the service and, in turn, allow us to meet the needs of children and families within our communities.
Affinity Trust is commissioned in Gloucestershire to deliver a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) service for children and young people.
Positive Behaviour Support is a way of understanding behaviours of concern. It is based on a detailed assessment of the environments, interactions and circumstances in which that behaviour occurs. Enabling PBS practitioners to then create a plan to address these behaviours jointly with the child’s family and professionals that they work with, such as schools and short breaks settings.
Changes ahead
Following engagement with a number of stakeholders there was agreement to make several changes to the current Children’s PBS service from Spring 2026.
These changes to the service will primarily include a community-based offer for families, advice and guidance for professionals and direct support with children and families.
The community-based offer will enable parents and carers to access PBS training and knowledge sharing sessions. Access to direct support from the PBS service will be by referral only. From Spring 2026, the service will accept referrals from professionals within the Council including Family Help and Education.
Please note: There will be no diagnostic criteria to access this service. Eligibility criteria are based on the child’s presenting needs.
Further details of all changes discussed in this article will be shared with families shortly via the Local Offer and other available platforms. An update will also be provided in the next article of Families in Partnership.
For more information on Positive Behaviour Support, please visit the relevant pages on Gloucestershire's Local Offer website, Support for Families with SEND.