Including Children and Young People with
Challenging Behaviour

The first Key:
WELCOME AND LISTENING
Lets get the welcome right and then lets really listen!
Safety and security are everything!!
Checkout our blog on getting the welcome right!
Check out these simple
guidelines on Listening.
It has been said that 90% of behavior problems come from children
wanting adults to listen to them. One study reported that the
number one request from suicidal teenagers was for adults to listen
to them. The medical power of listening has also been proven by
various studies.
Clearly, we all feel better when we feel heard. And we feel better
when we feel understood. In order to be understood, we must be
listened to. Often it is more important to us to feel heard than
to actually get what we said we wanted. On the other hand, feeling
ignored and misunderstood is literally painful whether we are
six or sixty.
The second Key:
Our Learning and their learning!
Learning styles/preferences and accommodations for individual
needs are becoming better understood all the time. Paul Ginnis
has produced a number of useful resources for educators in this
area. A Guide to Student-Centred Learning (1986, reprinted 15
times) and The Student-Centred School (1990). The
Teachers Toolkit , published January 2002 by Crown House
is an excellent resource for all teachers. Check out these student
friendly resources for English:
lesson plans, schemes of work and resources
Teaching and learning, as Paul Ginnis put it, are
about the learner
working it out for himself
about dramatic, unusual and multi-sensory teaching methods
about the creation of a teaching environment which is emotionally
and physically safe
about pupil control over his/her learning
about making choices and decisions which lead to true independent
learning.
Surely all these make good sense for pupils with major emotional
needs?
Circle
of Courage
We have found this model extremely helpful to many people
trying to make sense of young people's behaviour. The 4 basic
needs of belonging, achievement, independence and generosity and
the way in which pursuing these needs can so easily become distorted
gives many clues as to where to go next with a young person's
behaviour.

Education and empowerment of children provides the foundation
for a Native American Belief System of positive discipline. In
Reclaiming Youth at Risk, Brendtro, Broken leg and Van Bockern
(1990) use the symbolism of the medicine wheel to describe the
Circle
of Courage. This circle entwines central tenets of belonging,
mastery, independence and generosity; all components being equally
important. In a holistic teaching approach, it becomes vital to
understand these components and to be proactive in maintaining
the circle for each student in the community of the classroom.
The Circle of Courage has gained international attention and
has been adopted by numerous schools , agencies,
and organizations for troubled children and youth. The Circle
of Courage is based upon Native American ideals that if achieved
lead to sound mental health and functioning. To some extent they
are similar to hierarchies of "needs" such as that espoused
by psychologist Abraham Maslow. Educational and rehabilitation
programs may use many strategies to help children and youth attain
the core ideals. The circle suggests unity of function.
The four colours of the circle represent four races that are nevertheless
as one .Belonging is the first of the ideals. The emotionally
healthy individual must be able to identify with and relate to
others.So many pupils with EBD labels in the UK and elsewhere
experience no sense of belonging in either school or family life.
Mastery/Achievement is the second ideal: each person must
be able to accomplish basic tasks in order to feel worthy and
maintain good self-esteem. The third ideal is Independence.
Independence follows logically from Mastery and enables the individual
to set,pursue and attain personal goals. The fourth ideal is Generosity.
The person who is fulfilled has "extra" that he or she
can give to others. Ultimately, then, altruism is needed if a
person is ever to be emotionally and behaviorally stable .Opportunities
for the most challenging to be generous are usually severely restricted!Yet
this this represents 25% of basic human needs.
The third key:
The Long view
We need to take the long view when planning proving and placement
for individuals with complex and challenging needs. Currently
our system is too geared up for short term decisions.
Person
centred planning tools provide one process for helping us
think longer term with our dreams and our nightmares. Check out resources for developing your MAP skills. The MAP process
below was the result of working with a diverse team around a young
man who has spent many years in public care and for whom courageous
inclusive educationalists and Social Service workers managed to
maintain locally despite forces wanting him to be 'sent away to
residential' . Wayne dreams of a mansion in which young people
in care can stay and be well looked after...

We must take the long view in our planning for
complex individuals however young they are.
‘What do you want to be when you
grow up’?
How often have you heard this question asked
of typical children? What was your own answer as a child to this
question?
However we so often will not ask this same question of challenging
children and families will often say ‘we dare not think
beyond today’ let alone into the long term future. So we
go about planning for children with complex problems as if they
did not really have a long-term future and adulthood. We make
major decisions such as placement in a special school or unit
without having regard for the long term implications of such a
move. The child when they do become an adult are greatly at risk
of vulnerability and isolation from the wider community into which
they find themselves a part, or not a part. We live in a society
that does not have special shops or special bus stops….
Check out Colin
and Derek's thinking on this in full....
The fourth key:
Locating GIFTS and capacity
'Possibilities of goodness'
Locating gifts, talents and capacity in children and adults we
work with is a much more radical idea than it might seem. Check
out 'Now Discover
Your Strengths ' both book and web site...
All About
me This excellent booklet has
been written by a young person from Scotland with help from those
who know him best. Essential
lifestyle planning underpins many of the questions.This work
shows how important gifts are when planning for pupil's education.
Person centred booklets like these are appearing all around the
UK. They are getting names like Personal Portfolio or Passport.
Develop your own for a child you know today!!

Strengths & Strategies Profile
Kluth, P. & Dimon-Borowski, M. (2003)
This form can be used as an attachment to a positive behavior plan or as a communication tool for teams who are
transitioning a student from teacher to teacher or school to school. A student’s team (e.g., teachers, family,
therapists) should work together to fill in this form. Ideally, each list should contain NO LESS than fifty items. Sharing what matters!
The fifth
key:
Intentional Building of Relationships
We all need to accommodate each other and find new ways of repairing
the damage we can do to each other in our school, family and community
settings.
Circle of Friends is of course
a key tool for entering the messy world of relationships and can
make an amazing difference to individuals with the most challenging
behaviour and hard to reach emotional needs.

See Arousha's Circle in Action on the DVD or by clicking here....
Restorative Interventions Training: North East England
I have just done a rough count of children who have been involved in
Restorative Conferences since we completed our training with you and I am
up to about 100 children.
We have also had about 12 parents involved in
conferences. We are using the language so much it is second nature and
there have been many more children who have benefited from this I'm sure!
We are really pleased with how it is going and just this week me and Jane
Cunningham (Head Teacher) have held a couple of really successful
conferences where the children have been so on board and positive at the
end of the process it has confirmed to us that we are doing the right
thing!
We have had times when we doubt what we are doing because we are still
struggling to get some staff on board but luckily we have been able to
remind each other of our successes!
We both agree that your training was very inspiring and would like to
thank you for that!
We will keep chipping away at everyone!
Thanks again
Alison Holmes
Relationship Manager
Seaview Primary
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Click here to
download the latest 2006 Restorative Interventions Handbook (660kb: Word File: Small)

Restorative Solutions by Helen Mahaffey and Colin Newton 2008
OUT NOW!
This is a practical book about how to implement Restorative interventions and approaches in schools. The book gives guiding ideas, principle, theory and values as well as direct scripts for those involved in direct contact with pupils, staff and parents. Restorative SOlutions are about inclusion, transforming relationships and radical ways of impacting upon conflict and rule breaking behaviour. All schools in the UK and Support Service staff will want a copy. Parents will also find it an extremely valuable resource for bringing up their own children peacefully.

Colin Newton and Helen Mahaffey at June Book Launch of their book 'Restorative Solutions' the latest Inclusive Solutions Publication. Order here.
There is also a pack available featuring a great DVD created in Milton Keynes led by Tom McCready. Order here.

Trust and Forgiveness find new importance within this key
to meeting emotional needs. Forgiveness really has to be worked
on and needs to be seen in Relationship Policies in schools (
our preferred alternative to Behaviour Policies). Check out the
9 steps to
forgiveness
Peter Keane on video talking about: Peer Mediation , Restorative work with children and the Role of Support Services in South Tyneside
Peer Support. Peer
Support is an intervention designed to improve the effectiveness
of interpersonal relationships in schools and colleges, in youth
work and other workplaces. Systems of peer support involve equal
status peers who are trained to offer help to others who are experiencing
problems, such as bullying. This new programme in peer support
is the first in the UK to be university accredited.
The Forgiveness
Project is an organisation working to promote conflict resolution
and restorative justice as alternatives to the endless cycles
of conflict, violence and crime that are the hallmarks of our
time.
Fight Hate and promote Tolerance.
Great place for teaching tolerance resources and ideas.
Do something. In the face of hatred, apathy will be interpreted
as acceptance — by the haters, the public and, worse, the
victim. Decency must be exercised, too. If it isn't, hate invariably
persists.
What is really important when meeting emotional needs? In Punished by Rewards Alfie Kohn challenges us to get back to what really counts and not be so preoccupied with rewards and punishments!
Undercover Teams: (Bill Hubbard: New Zealand) A low-intrusion restorative approach to bullying.
Undercover Teams are a restorative adaptation of the influential and far-sighted work in the early 90’s of Barbara Maines and George Robinson of the UK. They labeled their support group approach to addressing school bullying as “No-Blame”. At the time and for years later, some people believed that this process was the single answer to school bullying that everyone had been looking for. Undercover Teams represent a unique tool that fits within the family of 'restorative responses' . Undercover Teams are a 'targeted approach to - repairing relationships.
Viewed using a restorative perspective, Undercover Teams (UTs) may not be regarded by some practitioners as ‘fully restorative’ because the victims of bullying and the offending students are not brought face-to-face as part of the process however this fact alone should not undermine the worth of UTs. Rather, UTs can represent a niche process for supporting young people who may be fearful at the prospect of participating in a restorative conference situation. For students who have been bullied for much or all of their school lives, this can often be the case.
Emotional Needs of Boys
is a theme we provide considerable training around because of
the over representation of boys in special schools and within
exclusion statistics,and as they grow up they continue to be over
represented among those with mental health problems, in prison
and so on. Recent 2003 UK HMI/OFTED publications OFSTED
finds extra R helps boys perform well at school and Boys
Achievement in Secondary Schools have highlighted the importance
of boys experiencing respect, high expectations, constructive
feedback, clear limits and a sense of humour! Boys respect teachers
who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. In successful secondary
schools where boys make good progress there is a 'non macho' culture,
where they can feel valued by an ethos that celebrates diverse
achievements, where short term tasks are set and work is marked
promptly with detailed feedback. These schools have plenty of
extra curricular activities, teaching is at a 'sprightly pace'
and there is good use of computers and interactive learning.alue
is placed on the diversity of learning styles and all experience
a true sense of belonging!
Boyz 2 Men
Check out this wonderful ongoing
piece of work in an inner city primary school.This OFSTED
praised work shows the powerful use of drama, art and music
in the meeting of emotional needs.For a fuller
description click here.

Creative Partnerships works to give school children
in areas throughout
England the opportunity to develop their potential, their ambition,
their
creativity and imagination through sustainable partnerships with
creative and cultural organisations, businesses and individuals.
For more information, visit them at Creative
Partnerships
Emotional
Intelligence, emotional competence and emotional literacy
are so important to develop and teach especially among our boys
and young men. The dark
side of emotional intelligence will be very familiar to many
visitors to this site and yet is seldom as well explored.
Gentle Teaching
may offer us a new way of exploring relationships with those who
are hard to reach...Gentle Teaching is a non violent approach
for helping people with special needs and sometimes challenging
behaviours that focuses on four primary goals of care-giving:
- teaching the person to feel safe with us
- teaching the person to feel engaged with us
- teaching the person to feel unconditionally loved by us
- teaching the person to feel loving towards us
Gentle Teaching is a strategy based on a Psychology of Interdependence
that sees all change as being mutual and bringing about a feeling
of companionship and community- symbols of justice and non-violence
The sixth key
Its all about TEAMS
Circles of Adults
This is a rich approach to encouraging
teachers and other practitioners to mutually
support each other with in depth problem solving and emotional
insights.It works even better with graphic facilitation and synthesis
as we have been discovering. Speak to us for details.We are currently
rewriting this paper...feel free to feedback to us.We are providing
training to model this approach.(see Training button)
This woks links well to that of educational
therapy. Educational Therapy is a way of working with children
who have learning difficulties. It combines teaching with therapeutic
exploration of the emotional factors, which may impede their learning.
Children in school can experience difficulties, which may prevent
them from accessing the curriculum and managing in class. A better
understanding of the complex issues underlying these problems
helps teachers to find new ways of thinking about children and
strategies for helping them both therapeutically and by preventing
difficulties from developing.
Quick
step by step guide to Circles of Adults
PRUs.
Are they good or bad?
Check out the arguments in this paper by Colin
Newton and Derek WIlson which draws upon DfES policies as well
as research.
| CIRCLES OF ADULTS
Teams Reflecting and Problem Solving Around
Emotional Needs and Challenging Behaviour
We are now seeking a host organisation who would like to collaborate in hosting a further series of coaching sessions in 2009. Let us know if your team are interested.
These 10 monthly sessions will model an in-depth problem solving process for use by teams working around the inclusion of a challenging individual. Using both process and graphic facilitation the group is guided through a set of key questions to reach a shared and deeper understanding of the young person's challenging behaviours, unmet emotional needs and to develop fresh strategies to support change. Participants will be expected to develop facilitation skills as well as to bring the stories of the most challenging young people they are involved with to the group sessions as the problem presenter in the Circles of Adults process.
Participants will receive direct feedback and supportive coaching as they learn the process skills involved.
By the end of the 10 sessions participants will feel able to lead the process within their own work settings. Read more about Circles of Adults
Circle of Adults Pack  |
'Really useful - loads of realistic and innovative solutions and strategies. Interesting. It went really quick!' (Teacher, Edinburgh, Fresh Approaches to Managing Behaviour)
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Listen, LISTEN

When you listen you affirm me
but your listening must be real
sensitive and serious
not looking busily around
not with a worried or distracted frown
not preparing what you are going to say next
but giving me your full attention.
You are telling me i am a person of value
important and worth listening to
one with whom you will share yourself.
I have ideas to share
feelings which i too often keep to myself
deep questions which struggle inside me for answers
I have hopes only tentatively acknowledged
which are not easy to share
and pain and guilt and fear i try to stifle
These are sensitive areas and a real part of me
but it takes courage to confide in another
I need to listen too if we are to become close
How can i tell you i understand?
I can show interest with my eyes or an occasional word
attuned to pick up not only spoken words
but aloso the glimmer of a smile
a look of pain, the hesitation, the struggle
which may suggest something as yet too deep for words
So let us take time together
respecting the others freedom
encouraging without hurrying
understanding that some things may never be brought to
light
but others may emerge if given time
Each through this listening, enriches the other
with the priceless gift of intimacy.
by Keith Pearson, Melbourne, Australia
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