Building relationships

Our school culture and ethos are inspired by trauma-informed approaches and the supporting science. Through developing a trauma and mental health informed approach, we believe we are supporting the current, and future, positive mental health and resilience of our children and the community we serve, which will enable them to engage fully in life and learning. We strongly believe in the power of relationships, and that all interactions are the opportunity for a positive intervention. We believe all children need to feel safe and emotionally supported in school for any chance of academic success.

We recognise the impact of trauma on brain development and are mindful that children’s responses are due to unavoidable chemical reactions in their brains, rather than ‘negative choices’.

The evidence-based research that underpins all of our SEMH interventions is based on three key models:

• Model one – The Ace Study and protective factors
• Model two – The neuroscience of mental health and Pansekeeps emotional systems
• Model three – Protect, relate, regulate and reflect

Model one – ACES and protective factors

We understand the devastating impact of childhood adversity experiences (ACE) on long-term mental and physical health, but more importantly, we recognise that through ‘protective factors’, we can mitigate the potential impact of early trauma and/or interrupt the progression from early adversity to mental ill-health and early death. Therefore, it is fundamental that wherever possible, we put these key protective factors in place to support all of our vulnerable children’s short and long term mental, physical and societal ill-health.

Protective factors include:

• When I was a child, there were relatives or other people who helped me feel better when I was sad or worried.
• When I was a child, teachers, youth leaders or other adults outside the family were there to help me.
• When I felt really bad, I could almost always find someone I trusted to talk to.
• There are people I can count on in my life.
• Someone in my childhood believed in me.

“One trusted emotionally available adult in the school, community or home before the age of 18 can make all the difference. For many children this trusted adult will be someone at school.” (TIS 2019)

Model two – The neuroscience of mental health and Panksepp’s emotional system

When planning our interventions and whole school approach to SEMH, we believe having knowledge of the neuroscience of mental ill-health is essential; we place particular importance to the Panksepp emotional system.

Panksepp’s emotional system identifies genetically-ingrained emotion systems in the brain:

RAGE, FEAR, PANIC/GRIEF (trigger stress hormones)

CARE (attachment)

SEEKING and PLAY (trigger pro-social chemicals)

Each system can be overactive, under-active or optimally activated. Children who have suffered trauma tend to have overactive (RAGE, FEAR, PANIC/GRIEF) systems and underactive (CARE, SEEKING and PLAY) systems, resulting in behaviours related to stress, anxiety, depression and anger.

Through our approach and interventions, we hope to activate the pro-social systems of CARE, SEEKING and PLAY in order to restore a balance of the systems, which underpins positive mental health. We do not expect a child who has an overactive RAGE, FEAR or PANIC system to be able to successfully manage the demands of school life without extra purposeful interventions to activate the pro-social systems.

By activating these systems we can:

• Encourage an appetite for life.
• Foster an eagerness to seek out what the world has to offer.
• Enjoy the necessary drive to transform the seed of an idea into an amazing reality.
• Develop brain capacities for emotional regulation.
• Decrease impulsivity and increase the capacity for focused attention.
• Programme the frontal lobe regions to support in concentration and capacity to manage stress.
• Empower confidence in asking for for help when troubled.
• Nurture skills to enable deeply fulfilling relationships later in life.
• Develop a capacity for empathy.

‘’The ability to form meaningful relationships is fundamental to mental health and happiness. It’s the quality of contact we have with other people that is arguably the most important determining factor in our quality of life. We can only truly develop ourselves through relationships with others.’’ (TISUK 2019)

Our school is invested in supporting the very best possible relational health. Therefore, we are committed to implementing as many of the components of trauma and mental health-informed schools model three (detailed below) as possible. This model is supported by evidence-based research which shows positive change in well-being and mental health, when implemented successfully and consistently.

Model three: Protect, relate, regulate and reflect

Protect – Our priority with any child in school, is to ensure safety first. It is the foundation on which everything else depends. Our focus is not only on the physical environment, but also on the relational environment and the very culture and ethos of our school. We aim to never place a child in a situation that they are not able to manage. We do this through:

• Whole school approach to SEMH.
• PACE.
• Ensuring there are emotionally-available adults in the school.
• Optimally active play and attachment systems.
• Constantly celebrating the positives.
• Non-shaming developmentally appropriate sanctions.
• Key conversational tools to ensure children feel safe to talk to adults.

Relate – We agree the ability to form meaningful relationships is fundamental to mental health and happiness. It is the quality of contact we have with other people that is arguably the most important factor in our quality of life. Therefore we see the importance in:

• Repeated positive relational experiences with emotionally-available adults.
• Enabling children to see themselves and their relationships and the world positively, rather than through a lens of threat or danger.
• Implement procedures to transform the inner world of vulnerable children from harsh or desolate places, to warm, kind places, enabling them to better manage their home situations and life as a whole.
• Increase the amount of nurturing experiences and relationships.

Regulate – We recognise that a high ACE score without the support of emotionally available adults, is likely to damage the children’s minds, brains and bodies. This is due to a high level of toxic stress, therefore we place great emphasis on supporting children in such a way that means we don’t leave them in a state of toxic stress. We do this by:

• Having a policy for ‘time in’ with a key adult rather than ‘time out’ to calm down.
• Supported regulation by emotionally-available adults.
• Provision of regulation spaces and tools.
• Individual plans for self-regulation and the ability to reflect rather than react.
• Teaching stress regulation.
• Whole school training on dysregulation.

Reflect – It is important when supporting a child’s emotional and mental health to have those conversations around ‘big’ and difficult feelings. We reject the notion that “this is opening a can of worms”. “If I can’t reflect on my feelings, I am far more likely to behave my feelings”. We need to support them to understand their thoughts and feelings, body sensations and reactions and encourage them to identify new options and strategies for ways forward, with both their hopes and difficulties. We can do this by:

• Helping children to heal emotionally.
• Talking to them in ways that make them feel safe enough to want to talk.
• Modelling how to reflect on their trauma rather than behave their trauma.
• Conveying empathy through naming their pain.
• Holding in mind their underlying feelings of distress, etc.

We feel that our ‘way of being’ and all of our SEMH interventions listed below support all of the three TIS models.

Interventions

• PACE.
• CARE de-escalation scripts zones of regulations.
• Learning Mentor/ PE mentor, job role ELSAs.
• Whole staff training and commitment to trauma-informed approach’s quality of life questionnaire.
• Nurture provision (The Roost) play therapy.
• Attachment play/Therplay.

We are committed to continually moving forward and implementing new interventions based on research. This is to ensure the relational and emotional health of all our children, and allow our most vulnerable to feel safe and emotionally healthy to successfully access the classroom or at the very least, the opportunity to develop into mentally and physically healthy adults.