Ellen Croft, PMLD Curriculum Leader and Specialist Leader of Education at Ash Field Academy, shared with us some startling figures with us regarding mental health:
“Approximately 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. In England, 1 in 6 people report experiencing a common mental health problem (such as anxiety and depression) in any given week. Children and adults with learning disabilities and other forms of disabilities are not exempt from this. (Source: People with Learning Disabilities in England 2011).Children with SEN are up to 6 times more likely to experience mental health problems than their peers. Children and young people with learning disabilities are much more likely than others to live in poverty, to have few friends and to have additional long term health problems and disabilities such as epilepsy and sensory impairments.”
With these alarming figures in mind it is more important than ever that we carefully consider the happiness and well-being of those Sensory Beings we support. In my experience this is an area that can tend to be overlooked in education as the focus is too often placed disproportionately on a drive for academic progress, data and achieving a positive grading from Ofsted! As front-line practitioners we need to be carrying the banner for these issues and ensuring we are promoting these issues within our settings. So… what can we do to achieve this? During the conference many different strategies and resources were shared many of which are quick and easy to put into practice.
Happiness (and unhappiness!) audit
Lucy and I first came across the Happiness Audit at a Saturday pop-up workshop in Cambridge with Flo Longhorn and Les Staves a couple of years ago (you can read more about this in a previous blog post here). The Happiness audit was created by Flo Longhorn and is a way of assessing the preferences of the Sensory Beings you support including: sensory stimuli, communication and the environment. This tool will assist you to support your learner’s emotional happiness and enable you to provide engaging and personalised learning opportunities.
This would be a great activity to discuss together with parents and those who have worked closely with the Sensory Being(s) you are going to be supporting in your setting. Why not hold a meet and greet or ‘getting to know you’ meeting. Your own observations will then add to and enrich this working document. The Happiness Audit would also be informative for new members of staff, volunteers and anyone who will be working with the Sensory Being. Flo explained that Sensory Beings ‘may sometimes portray the opposite of what they actually feel emotionally’. This makes it all the more important to record and share not only the preferences of our learners but what it looks like when a learner likes or dislikes a particular stimuli. For example, in a recent conversation I had with a parent they relayed to me how their child’s new taxi escort had been following her advice to play music on the journey which the child hugely enjoys. However, the taxi escort had in fact struggled to find any songs or music that the child enjoyed- every song played would result in the child pressing her fingers in her ears and vocalising. The taxi escort had interpreted this behaviour as showing dislike towards the music and would change the music at which point the child would often became upset. When the taxi escort relayed this information to the child’s mother, she explained that her daughter presses her fingers in her ears only when she is enjoying the music! As Flo explains, ‘observations need to be ongoing and open to unexpected interpretations of happiness’.
At the conference Ellen Croft explained how she used the Happiness Audit tool and also created an additional ‘unhappiness audit’ to highlight those areas which individuals may dislike so that stimuli the individual finds unpleasant can be avoided. Regularly update these audits and, as mentioned in a previous post, don’t be afraid to offer certain experiences a learner may have shown dislike to in the past where appropriate as preferences may change over time. You can find a copy of the Happiness Audit here along with a completed example and further information.
Mindfulness- Take five!
In last week’s post Lucy discussed how Ellen Croft had stuck to her guns with her usual practice of 5 minutes of silence at the end of an (Ofsted observed) TACPAC session with great success! I immediately implemented this strategy at the end of my story massage session on Monday morning. The impact was immediately visible… and audible! The children soon noticed the silence and began vocalising and moving about, they began interacting with each other’s vocalisations, there were frequent giggles from one pupil and two children took it in turns blowing raspberries. It really was a joy to observe. This can then lead into a great opportunity to engage in intensive interaction.
The benefits of this session were not only limited to the pupils in my class either. Members of my staff team commented on how they themselves found it to be calming to be able take just 5 minutes of quiet time in what is typically a very busy and active day. Positive mental health and well-being is important for us too! Joanna Grace comments on this very issue in her book ‘Sensory-being for Sensory Beings’ (2017) explaining how those we support are affected by our own anxiety levels. By taking time in this way, we put ourselves in a better position to support our pupils. I highly recommend you give this simple activity a go in your own setting whether it is at home, in a school or care setting. Be sure to let us know how you get on!
Empowerment
Empower your pupils to access and be part of the world around them. Many of our pupils have a multiplicity of impairments: visual, auditory, limited mobility... each of these have the potential to isolate and alienate our pupils from the world around them. Provide resources that can bring the world to them in a way that is meaningful and motivating. These resources need not cost the earth. You can find a variety of different ideas in previous posts and in our recommended books including Sensory umbrellas, whisks and shoe boxes (ideas from Flo Longhorn), Smell noodles and scent shakers (ideas from Joanna Grace)*. Put your newly made Happiness Audits into action and get busy crafting!
*Links to relevant previous posts: https://sensorydispensary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/shopping-trip.html
Exciting news… Core and Essential Service Standards
We were really excited to hear from Joanna Grace about the new ‘Supporting people with profound and multiple learning disabilities Core & Essential Service Standards’ published at the end of last month. You can download a copy here. Joanna co-authored the standards with Dr Thomas Doukas (Head of Inclusive Research & Involvement, Choice Support), Annie Fergusson (Senior Lecturer SEN and Inclusion, University Of Northampton PMLD Link Journal And Family Carer) And Michael Fullerton (Director of Quality and Clinical Care, Care Management Group).
“The Core and Essential Service Standards are designed to create a means for Commissioners of education, health and social care to work closely in partnership with service providers to ensure the best possible outcomes for people being supported. Through Commissioners and providers having shared expectations and standards of service delivery I can ensure that wherever a person lives, they can expect similarly high standards.”
(Supporting people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Core & Essential Service Standards 1st Edition, November 2017)
The standards cover 7 areas of Leadership, Quality, Staff Development, Physical Environment, Communication, Health and Wellbeing, Social, Community and Family Life and are designed to be used to evaluate and evidence the practice of settings supporting people with PMLD, highlighting both areas of strength and those areas which need development. These standards will help to ensure that we strive for and more consistently achieve the best practice in all settings supporting those with PMLD. Make sure you download your copy; share it with your SLT Monday morning and pop a copy in the staff room!
And finally…
It will be of no surprise that the majority of parent responses to our survey on ‘Educational outcomes for pupils with special educational needs’ indicated that they felt the greatest need to their child's education was happiness. We must take time to nurture and develop happiness opportunities for both our pupils and ourselves ensuring that we allow moments of time for quiet mindfulness and recuperation alongside active, exciting, sensory stimulating activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment