Dialectical behaviour therapy ‘Skills for Living’ for young people leaving care: A qualitative exploration of participants’ experiences

Abstract

It is acknowledged that care leavers experience an accelerated transition into adulthood, despite often having complex psychosocial needs with limited support networks. The ‘Skills for Living’ programme was designed to improve the psychological wellbeing of care leavers and offers an adapted Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills group as its primary intervention. This paper provides a qualitative evaluation of the programme. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 10 participants, and the data were analysed using thematic analysis ( Braun & Clarke, 2006 ). Four key themes emerged: ‘Initial Apprehension and Reluctance to Participate’, ‘Connection, Understanding and Validation’, ‘Confidence with Social Skills’, and ‘Emotional Acceptance and Self-Soothing’. Clinical implications and recommendations are discussed.

Transitional support interventions for care leavers: A scoping review

“…Bond (2020) and Hlungwani and Van Breda (2022) show that a 'Link' or 'Outreach' worker who facilitates the development of 'life skills', through education, employment and training, can also increase the young person's self-esteem and ensure that help, guidance and support is offered at the time and place that it is needed. At a time of critical complexity, Lougheed (2019) and Rouski et al (2022) showed that the provision of talking and arts-based therapies can also enable young people to engage with their helping networks, articulate their anxieties and worries, and build capacity for transformative change.…”

“…In each of the 36 articles, the service providers were shown as experts who acted as advocates for care leavers. As shown specifically by Bond (2020) and Rouski et al (2022), those involved in facilitating transitional support took the time to understand the individual structural causes of distress and work with care leavers, on an individual basis to manage anxiety as a normal emotional response to change. As shown by Sulimani-Aidan (2016), a designated 'Link' or 'Outreach' worker who takes time to time to develop and nurture feelings of security and trust can also help to promote a positive relationship with the young person.…”

“…The research in this section also highlighted the importance of a helping relationship as an enabler of a positive transition to independent living. However, only one paper advanced a conceptual model to aid the development of a helping relationship (Rouski et al, 2022). In this article, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy was reported as an effective tool to enable young people to work with their professional network to understand and accept their difficult feelings, learn new skills to manage them and become (better) able to make positive changes in their lives.…”