Holistic responses to pupils wellbeing

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Holistic responses to pupils well-being

• Examples from the fields of severe learning
  difficulties and behavioural, emotional and
  social difficulties

Melanie Nind 27 June 2008
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Harperbury
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Harperbury School

• Local authority provision set with a long-stay
  institution housing 700
• School catered for 70 residents with the most
  extreme needs
• Incarcerated in an institution and submerged in
  behavioural technologies
• Staff of 1985 re-evaluate priorities.

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Defining the population

• Severe/profound/complex/ multiple learning
  difficulties
• People for whom high levels of support are
  necessary for all activities and who are at an
  early stage of intellectual, communication,
  social and emotional development (equivalent to
  first 12 months of life).
• More likely to experience mental health
  difficulties during their lives than the general
  population (Hunt Tarleton-Lord 1998).
• Mental health difficulties are understood to
  increase in proportion to the severity of
  multiple disabilities (Sinason 1994).

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The need

• Quality of life issues
• Ability to learn issues
• Mental health issues

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Some pointers to Intensive Interaction

• Re-framing the priority
• Gary Ephraims augmented mothering
• Experimenting, reflecting, reading
• The literature on caregiver-infant interaction
• The feedback loop becoming happier students and
  teachers
• Reframing the approach

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The fundamental features of II

• Mutual pleasure playing - being together with
  the purpose of enjoying each other
• Practitioner adjusts interpersonal behaviours
  (gaze, voice, style of talking, body posture,
  facial expression) to become engaging and
  meaningful
• Interactions flow in time with pauses,
  repetitions, blended rhythms constant
  micro-adjustments for optimum levels of attention
  and arousal
• Practitioner infers intentionality i.e. credits
  the person with learning disabilities with
  thoughts, feelings and intentions - responds as
  if
• Practitioner uses contingent responding, follows
  lead, shares control.

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The emotional work

• Some emotional literacy competences are beyond
  this group but having emotional well-being is
  achievable and worthwhile goal that can be gained
  from
• feeling "uniquely known, recognized, nurtured and
  valued" (Weare, 2004, p.25)
• getting feedback, being listened to, experiencing
  self-efficacy
• emotional pleasure and satisfaction, relaxation,
  fun, joy, ability to lose oneself in the moment
  and experience engagement
• We did this through interactive play - proactive,
  preventative work concerned with the whole person
  and their environment.

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Emotional and social development

• There is now a strong evidence base that II leads
  to developments in
• Behaviours
• Engagement
• Learning
• But also some evidence of enhanced
• Attachment
• Resilience
• Relationships

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Some cultural sensitivities

• 1. Age-appropriateness
• no longer offering interactions that look
  acceptable, but fail to connect
• instead exposing self to acting and looking
  silly
• developmental approach - tailored to the stage,
  rather than just the age, of the learner.

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Some cultural sensitivities

• 2. Touch (incidental to interactions or the
  central focus for what is happening )
• an enjoyable, natural, irreplaceable aspect of
  communicating with someone who is pre-verbal
• deep emotional and psychological significance
  underpins all areas of human development -
  fundamental factor in health, well-being and
  cognitive development (Montagu, 1995)
• primary means for communicating empathy.

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NB Re-writing history

• Emotional side less to the forefront at the time,
  because
• history - subnormal subhuman non-emotional
• people with learning disabilities and people with
  mental health difficulties - separate and
  distinct groups, provided for by separate
  services with different cultures
• mental health needs invisible because they are
  not heard and cant be discussed. (Sheehy Nind,
  2005)

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NB Life after the institution

• A better physical environment outside the
  institution is pointless if life is characterized
  by loneliness, isolation, fear and apathy, if
  social interactions remain limited, if there is
  little concern for the subjective quality of the
  individual's experience, and if independent
  living skills and the treatment of challenging
  behaviour are prioritised over emotional
  well-being. (Arthur, 2003)

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Serendipity
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The Serendipity Cente

• Independent provision set in an urban area of
  social housing
• School catering for 12-15 day pupils with complex
  individual needs
• Providing an holistic approach to education and
  care
• Opened 2006 with a staff group selected to do
  something different.

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Defining the population

• Girls with social, emotional and behavioural
  difficulties
• Secondary school age
• Excluded from mainstream education
• Some with conditions like Asbergers or ADHD
• Some who have experienced traumatic life events
• Some more streetwise than others all
  emotionally young and damaged.

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The need

• Girl-only and girl-oriented provision, because
• Girls difficulties manifest differently
• Girls are marginalised in provision
• Safety issues
• Body issues
• The need to re-engage

Shanice's school said it could not have her in
the classroom
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Finding an approach

• Meeting the ECM agenda
• Values underpinning everything
• Drawing on attachment theory
• Working from instinct and experience
• Working on a strong evidence base the KTP

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Enacting the values

• Sharing the values openly and with students
• Looking after each other
• Providing a safe, calm, secure environment
  carefully designed spaces
• Home-school support empowering parents
• Re-engaging students in learning personalised
  curricula
• Promoting positive behaviour respect
• Fostering well-being open communication,
  boundaries
• Removing barriers to learning

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Connections between the 2 schools

• Special schools finding a way to connect
• Concern with holistic approach quality of life,
  reciprocity, transactional environments
• Strong team ethos nurture
• Willingness to question and do things differently
• Concern with minutiae
• Combining values, intuition and research

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Differences

• Twenty years on or a different population group?
• Working with the person only or whats around the
  young person and influencing the child
• Raising awareness about whats important to child
  - advocacy
• Empowering child to influence her own pathway
  take their chance
• Working with rights agenda to protect and promote
  well-being.