John Shephard has worked in developmental disability services as a practitioner, service manager, trainer and consultant for over 20 years. Since 1990, his work has primarily been concerned with people who exhibit severe challenging behavior. He is currently working as a behavioral specialist with the Hastings & Rother NHS Trust Community Learning Disability Service.

His particular interests are environmental issues in the management of challenging behavior, the development of non-aversive interventions, including safe reactive strategies, and staff training.