The LD EFA course has been developed with input and advice from a group of LD specialist workers ranging from Primary years, through Young Peoples services and onto Adult services and we hope to pilot the material to staff working in the LD community. As this course is a pilot we hope that you will help us road test the material and contribute to the final draft of this course before it will be officially launched later in the year.

Cohort 136: Portsmouth
Trainers: Janine Jupp & Paul Jetten
Venue: The Harbour School @ Milton, 151 Locksway Road, Milton, PO4 8LD
Time: 9am – 12:30pm
Dates: Tuesdays 24th April, 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th May 2012

Cohort 134: Southampton
Trainers: Stuart Gemmell & Paul Jetten
Venue: Rape Crisis, 7 Cranbury Place, Southampton, SO14 0LG
Time: 9:30am – 1pm
Dates: Wednesdays 25th April, 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th May 2012

We have 12 free places on each course so please email: paul.jetten@solent.nhs.uk to register your interest and book on a course.

Sarah Farndon
Primary PGCE Student

As an introduction to attachment we were asked to draw an image of our favourite childhood toy or comforter. This activity got us feeling sentimental and many of us dug out our toy when we got home. We discussed that we can feel attached to routines as well as places, people and objects as many of us, being so busy with university work, are finding that we are hankering for our old routines back. This reaffirmed what we learnt; that attachment is on a scale and is a continuum, which we can move along up and down throughout our lives. Therefore attachment is not a problem, it’s the detachment that can cause problems.
In the primary classroom, by giving children choices and preparing them for any changes they go through a desensitisation of situations.

Lucy Cowdrill
Primary PGCE Student

Sarah Hardie

Primary PGCE Student

When recalling the previous session, various topics were brought up including the different ways in which anxiety can manifest and how this is reflected through behaviour, physically and in thoughts. Children in particular often display this through physical problems. Often semantic disorders also occur where children may say they have a stomach ache because they do not have the emotional language to explain how they are feeling. We also recalled over sleep patterns.
On reflecting on own practice it was recognised that change in routine can cause difficulties for children. Such as a school trip and it was suggested that the best way to help the child is to desensitize them by talking about what/where they will actually be going or doing and maybe taking them in separately so they get used to where they are going, and realise it is nothing to worry about rather than allowing the child to catastrophes the situation. It was also recognised that your own stress and anxiety when teaching can have an impact on the children’s behaviour. Therefore it is always best to be confident, clear and well prepared to make sure that you get the best out of the children in your class.

Natalie Keen

Primary PGCE Student

Reflections from Week 1:
Group One: Clarity Jacobs. Primary PGCE Student.
We all found Session 1 really interesting, especially as you start to make links between the behaviours and children that you work with. I think the course is going to make us better teachers and we all think we will finish the course feeling more confident that we are prepared to support the wellbeing of the children in our classes, as this is something that is incredibly important. As PGCE students, we are taught about specific subjects and behaviour management, but we lack information on how we can care for the wellbeing of the children in our class and this is an integral part of teaching. We are all glad we have opted for additional support from the course on the emotional issues that may be faced by the children in our classes as this is something most new teachers may feel least confident in addressing.

The reflective nature of the course is very valuable, thinking about applying ideas and how, it is useful and helps you to develop your own approach. Not only reflecting on the issues raised in class but reflecting on your own experiences as a child helps you to approach the children from their perspective rather than your own, seeing the importance of the little things and being empathetic to the child’s perspective. We all discussed that the reflection is something we would like to take into our own classrooms, perhaps in the form of a day diary where you note any particular behaviours or discussions of importance to enable you to reflect and look at the bigger picture for individual children rather than looking at behaviours in isolation.

Group Two: Simon Emerton. Primary PGCE Student.
One of the most important messages taken from last weeks session was that behaviour should be seen as a form of communication whether intentional or not. The importance of empathy was discussed as it is difficult to figure out where a child is coming from and why if you can’t remember what it was like being that child’s age and so put yourself in their position.

Emotional distress and how to recognise it was covered and how it can often be indicated by a collection of behaviours or change of behaviour. Then trying/finding/identifying ‘solutions’, and sometimes even when those don’t work, still persisting with them i.e. the issue of ‘emotional stuckness’.
The zones of comfort diagram was recalled with the ‘comfort zone’ in the middle, the ‘stretch’ zone outside that, and the ‘panic’ zone around that. It had served to stress the Importance of early intervention to prevent things becoming more serious and so more difficult to deal with later on.

A key thing throughout all these discussions was trying to find out the reasons behind the behaviours i.e. what is motivating the child to do this, rather than just seeing and dealing with the resultant behaviour, so that the situation can be more intelligently managed and hopefully resolved.

Oakwood House
Oakwood Park
Maidstone
ME16 8AE

www.oakwoodhousehotel.co.uk

This will be an opportunity to network with other EFAer’s in your locality and share best practice in terms of embedding EFA in your work.
For those of you who have attended training, but not received your certificates there will be a certification celebration at the end of the call-back.

Even if you have attended a call-back before, we would still love to see you and hope that we can continue to host these events to build upon the fantastic network which you have created during the training.

If you are unable to attend the call-back, please let either us or your trainer know and we will forward on any information from the event to you, or post it on the community forum.

We look forward to seeing you all and celebrating the amazing work you do.

2011 has seen the creation of Parents’ EFA and further development sites including PGCE students at Southampton University; Tower Hamlets and Kenya!

The first EFA Trainers conference, which the EFA team particularly enjoyed, saw the coming together of EFA Trainers throughout the country and is something we hope to repeat in 2012.

On a rather sad note, we lost our highly efficient, effective and energetic administrator, Ally Krause, the loss of which we are still trying to come to terms with. (We are still trying to grapple with, on a practical level, the amount of work Ally did – we still don’t understand how to turn on the computer, let alone access data files, so please keep bearing with us).

Returning to good news, on the 12th December 2011, the EFA team were given permission by our host NHS Trust Board to explore the notion of becoming a Social Enterprise. We will keep you all updated on the progress of this exploration and hope to hold some stakeholder events in the New Year to share your thoughts and visions for the future of EFA.

In 2012, we hope to pilot and launch LD EFA and we are pleased to report we have been commissioned to deliver some bespoke training for CLIC Sargent to support the fantastic work they are doing helping young people with a diagnosis of cancer.

Thank you all for being part of the EFA Family, and hope you will all continue the journey with us and keep up the excellent work in your own areas. We want to acknowledge all those wonderful workers out there supporting Children, Young People and their families and know that it is you who make the real difference.

All the very best

Stuart & Paul

Most of you who have had contact with Ally will acknowledge her friendliness and professionalism, however to me as her boss and who also knows her in the other capacity as my personal secretary I am devastated by her departure. I want everyone to know I undertook various ways to secure Ally as the EFA administrator but was unable to deliver the right package in order to make it right for Ally to stay. I know that both she and I feel let down in this process and it has made me question the future of my role as EFA manager. I hope that one day soon I will report a different outcome and direction that may see Ally Krause back where she belongs and doing what she does best – not least managing me!!!!!

I wish you all well and hope to hear from you soon

Stuart Gemmell

As you will all agree Ally is irreplaceable and will leave a huge hole in the EFA team. Currently we do not have a dedicated replacement administrator and we would ask that you all bear with us in this difficult time of transition.

We will do our utmost to maintain as efficient a service as we can provide, however there may be delays in responding to enquiries and systems may not run as smoothly as we have all become accustomed to.

We recommend that if you know you will be delivering an EFA course or have bulk orders of pizza boxes you need access to in the next few months that you contact Ally as soon as possible to make arrangements. Please remember that all of the course material for EFA trainers can be found on the community forum. If you have still yet to register we recommend doing this before you are due to deliver any training.

Please note that there may not be anyone manning the office telephone as Stuart and I may be away delivering courses. In this event, please either email me directly as I will have access to emails on my blackberry, or you can leave a message on my work mobile below.

Thank you in advance for your understanding and we hope you join us in wishing Ally every success in the future.

Stuart Gemmell & Paul Jetten

Paul.jetten@solent.nhs.uk
07825 753114

If any of you would like to share a case study of the amazing work you are doing, please get in touch with the EFA Team and we would love to publish it here on the site.

You can also share your strategies with other EFA’ers across the country on the EFA Community Forum.