“How Isle Listen” – A Service Explanation
September 23, 2019
On the 16th of September, our listening service in our pilot secondary schools of QEII High School and King Williams College began.
We are aiming to be as transparent as possible with all aspects of the initiative, and so thought some may find it interesting if we outlined specifics around our criteria for the service in schools and exactly how it will work:
REFERRAL:
Both our schools are working under slightly different models, however certain aspects resound with both institutions…
The Heads of Key Stages, along with the pastoral teams supporting them, will help identify individuals suited to working with our team. This is at a Step 1 or even Step 0 level, where the symptoms being addressed tend to be around low mood, low self-esteem, low-level anxieties and high levels of stress.
We expect these to fall under 5 key areas of friendships and social circumstances, family circumstances, social media, bullying and academic pressures.
STRUCTURE:
We are targeting to work with the individual for a minimum of 4 sessions, however, can be more or less depending on the needs of the young person. These will be at intervals suiting the individual and so giving them the appropriate intensity and structure needed to help them with the identified areas of development.
GOALSETTING:
Having identified the area of stress in the young person’s life, a large portion of the sessions will be spent working with the individual to help them address the issues causing the symptoms of poor mental wellbeing. They are given tasks to work on in their own time which are specific to the key areas of focus identified through the referral and/or from the initial session with the listener.
This will make the individual more aware of which aspects of their wellbeing they may need to work on, but also build confidence in their ability to progress independently and continue to build on the development they have shown they are capable of whilst working with our listeners.
FOLLOW UP:
After the appropriate number of sessions has taken place, the young person will be set more targets and moved away from longer, more frequent sessions, to shorter and less frequent “catch up” style sessions where goals and development can be reviewed and the wellbeing of the individual can be monitored to ensure they are coping. If the planned number of sessions have been completed and the individual is not yet in a position to work independently, more sessions can be put in place or further signposting may be necessary.
We are extremely hopeful that this positive work will not only prevent more serious issues from developing, but also take pressure off the statutory services so the issues that need to receive higher level clinical support are able to do so.