Creating safe places: an exploratory evaluation of a school-based emotional support service

Abstract

School-based interventions for young people with emotional/mental health problems are often provided by external practitioners and their relationship with host schools is a key influence on implementation. Poor integration within school systems, schools' tendency to define interventions around pupils' behaviour and teachers' control over access, may undermine therapeutic relationships. This study examines how one school-based intervention—Bounceback—addressed these challenges. Methods comprised interviews with programme staff, school staff and service users. Bounceback sought to develop therapeutic relationships through creating a safe, welcoming place and maximising pupils' choice about how they engaged with it. To ensure Bounceback was delivered as intended, staff developed five conditions which schools were asked to meet: adhering to referral criteria, ensuring that attendance was voluntary, appropriate completion of referral forms, mechanisms for contacting pupils and private accommodation to maintain confidentiality. Pupils reported high levels of acceptability and described relationships of trust with Bounceback staff. Although pupils had choice about most aspects of Bounceback, teachers controlled access to it, partly in order to manage demand. The study highlights the need for external agencies to communicate their aims and needs clearly to schools and the importance of peripatetic practitioners being well integrated within their parent organisations.

The impact of school culture on schools’ pupil well-being policy-making capacities

“…in their approach to well-being by asking their opinion and finding out their views. In other words, schools must have a responsive capacity in order to achieve strong pupil well-being policy-making (Cotton 2003;Robinson, Lloyd, and Rowe 2008;Segrott, Rothwell, and Thomas 2013). equally, innovative capacity is another indicator of schools' pupil well-being policy-making capacities.…”

“…Finally, team members in schools with strong policy-making capacities are willing to reflect on their own approach and activities (Segrott, Rothwell, and Thomas 2013;Thorburn 2015;Vescio, Ross, and Adams 2008). They adopt a critical attitude towards the existing approach, and are continually on the lookout for possible opportunities for improvement.…”

“…Figure 1 shows the interrelationship between the two concepts under scrutiny. Based on this theory, we approach pupil well-being policy-making capacities as a latent variable, which explains the variance in eight indicators (Harris 2003;Laila 2015;Maas and Lake 2015;Segrott, Rothwell, and Thomas 2013;Thorburn 2015). Furthermore, given the interrelatedness between school culture and policy-making (Carpenter 2015; Chan and Ross 2014), our hypothesis is that different underlying cultural values exert a different influence on schools' pupil well-being policy-making capacities.…”

Unravelling the ‘Safe’ concept in teaching: what can we learn from teachers’ understanding?

“…There is a global rise in emotional and mental health issues amongst our young people (Segrott et al, 2013) and also concern regarding the wellbeing of teachers (Galton and MacBeath, 2008;Morgan et al, 2010;Turner et al, 2012;Newton, 2014). Awareness and interventions/support programmes for pupils and teachers with mental/emotional health problems (Rothi et al, 2008;Kidger et al, 2010;Bostock et al, 2011;Segrott et al, 2013) are topical research areas.…”

“…Awareness and interventions/support programmes for pupils and teachers with mental/emotional health problems (Rothi et al, 2008;Kidger et al, 2010;Bostock et al, 2011;Segrott et al, 2013) are topical research areas. However, this article's focus is on teachers' understanding of the 'safe' concept and in particular, attention will be drawn to emotional safety and its impact on pupil and teacher wellbeing.…”