In this course we explore Mental Health and address how such needs can be met in mainstream classrooms.

Inclusion Facilitation (IF) is an approach to enhancing the inclusion, in a mainstream community of any child or young person who is experiencing difficulties in the world because of disability, personal crisis or because of their challenging behaviour towards others. Inclusion Facilitation is designed to create a better life for an individual by the provision of an intense input designed to being about social change. This usually entails a series of visits focused on getting the person out and about to increase confidence, social skills and presence in their local community and to pursue goals and dreams.

In this course we explore how we have attempted to build inclusive circles of support around individuals and contrast this with a radical approach to problem solving with parents – the Parent Solutions Circle. Parent Solutions is a brand new approach to problem solving with parents based on our live group work in schools. A focus on challenging behaviour brings interest, energy and commitment. 

Click to read more about this training, in which we demonstrate a live problem solving approach which is based on the active participation of family members.

Reaching troubled families is now a target for many working in Children’s Services- Education and Social Care. What fresh approaches can we design to enable more access to services and opportunities? The challenge is to get isolated people and families who participate little (and who are often the clients of Services) outside of the world of clients and services.

This training explores a powerful way of capture what communities have to tell about what they have learned about dealing with hard times. This narrative approach to strengthening community work is being used in a range of communities around the world and is relevant to strengthening schools, parents, community groups, organisations in the UK and elsewhere.

A “Restorative Solution” is a non-adversarial approach to conflict resolution where the person who has done something wrong in a given situation becomes accountable to those s/he has harmed. This person is then given the opportunity to “make up” for their inappropriate behaviour through agreement and reparation. An intervention can involve a formal conference, or it can be a simple conversation on a corridor or playground.

In this practical workshop session we will explore ways of problem solving around complex situations. The session will be practical and will aim to allow the sharing of experiences and good practice as well promoting innovative approaches to problem solving around systemic, organisational as well as individual inclusion issues.

Peer mediation is an approach to impacting on bullying in primary and secondary schools by training pupils to be ‘counsellors’. This well proven, highly effective method of impacting on school based bullying is still viewed by some as radical. In this workshop participants are introduced to the key components of successful schemes. Our trainers have first hand experience of setting up school based schemes and sustaining these over time.

Legislation and national and local Government initiatives confront us all with the challenge of working together in the interests of the most vulnerable and the most challenging more effectively than we do today. In this training day we explore these challenges and consider successful ways of setting the conditions for effective multi agency working.