Sometimes children can seem so mysterious, separate, impossible to know, even harder to help. Even to ourselves as children. As adults working with children, whatever our role, we do our best to be present and support them, at the same time as granting them the freedom...
I’ve often been asked to work with a child in school when the adults around them have tried everything they can think of without success and everyone feels stuck. It might seem like I’m walking into a hopeless situation, skilled professionals using what’s available; rewards...
What can we do to prevent molehills turning into mountains when overwhelmed and depleted specialist mental health services are unable to act rapidly enough to keep children safe and well? Facing a crisis in specialist mental health provision, concerned professionals inside and outside medicine are doing...
Last week (Dennis Campbell, Health Policy Editor Oct 25 2022) the Guardian reported on a research study into “social prescribing” as an approach to improved mental wellbeing. The trial, run by University College London and funded by the Prudence Trust, a charity which supports young...
I watched the Panorama programme ‘Mental health: Young lives in crisis’ last night. It struck me on one hand as a message of hope over experience, on the other as a story of people reaching out in desperation as they struggle to stay afloat, treading...
My article last week ‘It’s time to scrap exclusion from schools attracted a few replies on Twitter, among them: * This is interesting. Reasoned sensible argument about exclusions. Thank you Geoff.The need for change. * And prison of course. Let us not safeguard children. * I’d be all...
It’s time to scrap school exclusion. Why? Because Plan A isn’t working. A story - Plan B. A young man on the edge of adulthood, experiencing such severe panic attacks it’s causing him to disengage and putting his educational future at risk. As part of a school...
The Problem Talk from Twitter this week; A July 2020 report from the then new Children’s Commissioner (England) ‘Vulnerable teenagers; where did it go wrong?’ Shining a light on the extent and impact of child vulnerability in England, focusing in particular on children with undiagnosed mental health issues,...
Case note 1: “Some members of my team who are in school now starting to deliver Solutions Focused Coaching sessions shocked the socks off the school and surprised the young people - two very, very good sessions with two disillusioned young people. It was an incredibly...
I wrote this in March 2021 - what does it say to us now, more than a year later? The important thing about science is not much to obtain new facts but to discover new ways of thinking about them - Sir William Bragg (1862-1942) 21st century...
