A difficult child, an encouraging change

Damien was a difficult child. He had experienced significant trauma in his life due to the breakdown of his relationship with both his mother and his father. His maternal grandmother was trying to raise him through enormous difficulties.

At the age of 8, Damien was permanently excluded from mainstream education and was given a full Statement of Special Educational Needs. He was placed in a special school for children who are diagnosed as having Social Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties.

Unfortunately, Damien demonstrated significant behavioural problems in the new school, in his home and within his community. In school, staff had to intervene frequently and initiate Positive Handling techniques to ensure not only his own, but also his peers and staff safety due to his loss of self-control. Also, these behavioural problems were impacting his ability to learn and were having a negative impact on his progress indicators and schooling. At some point in time, he was the pupil who was most frequently Positively Handled and was on the verge of permanent exclusion.

In an attempt to find solutions to Damien’s on-going issues, the school contacted us and asked us to provide an individual one-day a week educational programme for him, with support from staff in school.

The results from the education programme were nothing short of astounding.

In a 6-months period, his improvement was remarkable:

• Numeracy assessment rose by 10 months
• Literacy assessment rose by 17 months
• Staff had to intervene with Positive Handling techniques only once!
• Behaviour scores increased from an average of 58% to 93%
• Social and Emotional assessments (Boxall Profile) rose by 42% in relation to Increase of Self Worth, Negativism Towards Self, Self Negating Behaviours and Disengagement From Tasks
• Speech and Language Assessment rose with regard to his Receptive Language
• Emotional Literacy assessment increased considerably

After this period, Damien secured his placement in the school and his tutor assured “We now have a completely different young man. Damien is now engaging in school and regularly achieves our “Pupil of the Week” award”. His grandmother stated he was more content with her at home and there had been a significant decrease on the number of community issues.