Emotional Support For Individuals
As many of you have been aware the school have been using a program called ‘Thrive’ for the last 2 years. This approach has enabled us to support children at St Hilary using creativity and play to help develop emotional resilience and we have all seen a real impact this way of working has had on a number of individuals throughout the school.
We have been lucky that this was partly funded through the Cornish charity Headstart, whose aims are to support emotional resilience and mental wellbeing of children and young people across Cornwall. However last year they had to complete a tender process to determine which organisation could most effectively meet these aims across the County. Therefore our ‘Thrive’ program has now changed to using TIS UK- Trauma Informed Schools UK, supported by the computer based program run by Motional.
So what will change? Nothing; TIS is based on the same scientific research and has been developed using the latest research into brain science, child development theory, attachment theory and the role of creativity and play in developing emotional resilience.
I the school team thinks your child would benefit from these sessions here is some of the rationale behind why some children might need some extra support in developing emotional resilience, from the people behind Motional:
We believe that a child’s learning shouldn’t just be about academic results - that’s only one part of us growing into well-rounded human beings. We also need to learn about how and why we feel, think, react and behave in certain ways. And sometimes we get those feelings, thoughts, reactions and behaviours wrong. Just like sometimes we get maths problems wrong.
Often the what is easy to spot when it comes to feelings, thought, reactions and behaviours!
Motional helps adults and children understand the why, and work on the how, so that the what can change. We also keep track of the what so we can see when or if it changes. We call these Reports.
Sometimes the why can be difficult or painful to talk about, sometimes it can be a relief to talk about it. Motional uses ACEs and Protective Factors to help us understand.
We have some questions that teachers can answer about your son or daughter to find out what the what is when they’re at school. You could do the same to measure the what at home. They’re things like “Is John able to make friends and be warm, open and friendly?” And “Does Erica have explosive outbursts or temper tantrums?” And “Neil enjoys finding solutions to problems.” They’re scored by how often that thing happens - never, rarely, sometimes, often, or always. We save the answers to these questions in Snapshots.
We use the answers to those questions to suggest things the adult can do to help that child with the how. Again, you could do some of these at home if you wanted to. We call these Programs.
At St Hilary we believe we have been given a huge opportunity to support any child that needs it, in order to help them develop into well rounded individuals. Children may need this support for a short period of time or as a longer set of ongoing sessions, and the reasons they may need this can vary hugely as their experiences vary widely. We have 3 trained personnel in school to deliver these sessions: Miss Rowe, Mrs Badcock and our SENCo Miss Brant.
If the school team think your chid might benefit from these sessions, their class teacher will contact you to discuss this and they will ask you to complete a parental permission form. From this they will use the 'Motional' online assessment team and create can action plan for an sessions. These will then run within the school day at a time which is suitable within their usual class timetable. (Usually on a weekly basis).
Then if you have any questions at any time about how your child is progressing, you can ask their class teacher, the practitioner that is working with your child, or you can email the school SenCo Michelle Brant: firstname.lastname@example.org.