Linda Woodcock on Managing Meltdowns
“The low arousal approach is based on three assumptions, firstly that most individuals who are distressed are extremely aroused at the time, therefore we should avoid doing anything to make it worse…”
Author: JKP
Kieran O’Hagan on Competence in Social Work Practice
“…why is it that a very small number of social workers who have striven so hard to qualify and who have demonstrably proven their competence at the end of their training fail to maintain it in practice? […] It certainly cannot happen overnight. The reports often expose terrible working conditions, e.g., inadequate supervision and resources, and unrealistic caseloads (and that’s even without mention of exceedingly difficult and often intimidating clients). All of these factors may adversely affect the worker’s level of performance, and in some cases, make it virtually impossible to maintain the level of competence already achieved in practice placements, and amply recorded and demonstrated in workers’ portfolio. Therein I believe, lies both the problem and the solution…”
Chris Taylor on Caring for Children and Teenagers with Attachment Difficulties
“Our attachment history affects us all, and children who have had sub-optimal early care are likely to be anxiously attached and to carry this anxiety as a self-fulfilling prophecy into other relationships, developing behavioural coping mechanisms that may make them difficult to care for. If the caregiver is also frightening, the child cannot organize their coping strategy in a coherent way. Such a child presents a huge challenge to be adequately cared for. Understanding attachment allows professionals charged with this task to unpack the child’s adjustment and work out ways of responding to the child that answers their attachment need and switches of the child’s self-defeating behaviours.”
Article by Phoebe Caldwell: Using Intensive Interaction to turn ‘aloneness’ into shared interest
“Contrary to what is normally understood, children on the autistic spectrum do recognise when we use their own body language to communicate, provided we respond using the repertoire of their personal behaviours. We are shifting their attention from solitary self-stimulation to shared activity, remembering that what is important is not just what they do – but how they do it, since this tells us how they feel.”
Clare Lawrence on Transition, Teaching and Technology
“One of the great things about current times is that communication is so much easier, if we just use it. […] A teacher can email a homework assignment home, or send early warning that there will be a different teacher taking a class the next day. AS may involve a communication difficulty, but the technology is there now to help overcome it.”
Christiane Sanderson on Counselling Survivors of Interpersonal Trauma
“…practitioners need to ensure they do not hide behind protocols and prescriptive techniques in order to create an authentic human relationship in which to truly understand their client and undo the dehumanisation inherent in interpersonal abuse.”
Rhidian Hughes: “Restraint does nothing to address the underlying causes of people’s behaviour”
“…the United States was the first country to take a long hard look at the use of restraint and to develop a number of innovative restraint reduction and eradication approaches. […] Progress in other countries has followed, although at a different pace. Arguably the UK has lagged behind other countries in the attention afforded to this topic and the lack of domestic research has been criticised, a point made in the book…”
Mary Wilkinson honours nine great disabled leaders
“Much had been written about disability from a medical, academic or social science stand point, but no one had looked at disabled leaders as a group, told their stories, shown how they came to achieve what they did and how the modern history of disability has been played out in their lives…”
A tribute to renowned play therapist Ann Cattanach
JKP first published Ann Cattanach’s work in the early 1990’s, by which time she was an established play therapist, confident in her ability to help…
Gordon Jack throws newly qualified Social Workers a lifesaver
“I think it is important for newly-qualified social workers to understand that they won’t be able to develop a successful and satisfying career, in which they can make a sustained and positive contribution to the well-being of the children and families they are working with, unless they make sure that they look after themselves.”