School Adults – Therapists

All adults in school are trained to enable them to have a good understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the relational approach and what this approach means in practical terms in school. All school adults are trained to understand how they need to be in their relationships with children and why. They are trained and supported to read children’s behaviour in terms of their relational needs and understand the needs of children who have attachment needs or who have experienced trauma. There are regular opportunities for continued professional development.

We try to ensure in all appropriate meetings that we have space and time for regular professional dialogue about the approach. Respectful relationships within school where all adults are valued is key to a strong relational approach but we also have systems and processes which ensure that school adults are heard and that they are able to affect change. Ensuring that all adults are equal partners also helps us to bring about responsibility rather than accountability. All adults in school are encouraged to make a valuable contribution to provision and to have ownership of their work through opportunities to share and develop ideas and good practice. We find peer mentoring is helpful to share ideas and problem solve and line management supervision is additionally supportive in enabling development both at a personal and organisational level.

SMT are aware of the ‘secondary stress’ symptoms that can impact on school adults who are working with children who have experienced trauma and loss and we have supervision opportunities for school adults to understand and manage intense feelings and projections that can lead to ‘blocked care’ and empathy fatigue. Libra has signed up to the DoE Staff Wellness Charter and we strive to ensure we continue to meet these guidelines to support our school adults.

Supporting System for School Adults

Support for school adults includes:

• Training, coaching and mentoring to develop knowledge and skills.
• Supervision to support work with individual children or classes.
• Observation followed by discussion including feedback and guidance.
• High presence of SMT on site
• Open door policy to all SMT staff
• Opportunities to share good practice with others.
• High levels of adult support within the classroom to ensure children can be co-regulated
• Opportunities for the children to leave the class for a short period of time in order to calm down, have a sensory break or work with another adult for a period of time before returning
• Facilitation of restorative meetings
• A strong EHCP review process with access to partner agencies who are better able to advise on the needs of the child and any additional provision that may be required
• Support in meeting and communicating with parents.
• Access to school staff mental health advocates and one on one therapy if required for personal support.