Inclusive BLOG

Circle of Adults - Conclusion: Team 9

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:55:24 +0100

Circle of Adults (Newton and Wilson, 2006) is a lengthier but deeper approach to team reflection and problem solving.

Again we believe that the more complex the problem, the more diverse the team needs to be if understanding and relationships with challenging young people are to be at their best. We developed this approach in the face of intractable behaviour problems in schools, a rising tide of exclusions from schools and in the face of a disturbing, instinctive attitude that a high number of pupils ‘ just don’t belong here’. Read a detailed summary at Inclusive Solutions web site or purchase the practical handbook shown here or DVD illustrating the process at our on line store.

Building on earlier attempts to develop group and teamwork and mutual support among teachers this model evolved. Regular meetings are held between a concerned circle of adults, as diverse a group as possible. In these groups emotions are shared, personal feelings and reactions explored as well as deeper understandings of individual young people and what they bring, gained. Aspects of the system, which help and hinder are explored, and detailed problem solving is engaged in. These groups are powerful and do make a difference. We feel that the task facing teachers and other professional carers and educators of understanding and coping with emotional turmoil and hard to manage behaviour is not an easy one and processes which can offer front line staff essential support and supervision must be welcomed.

The ‘Circles of Adults’ approach addresses the need for a problem solving process that is able to take an in-depth look at meeting the emotional needs that commonly underlie challenging behaviour in schools. The approach is co-facilitated and is designed to enable the participation of teacher teams to reach a deeper understanding of a young person and to evolve a set of hypotheses and emerging strategies that better accommodate to unmet emotional and learning needs. The approach is a time consuming one and intended for use with the most challenging young people, those at high risk of being permanently excluded from the regular school system. A 90-minute session will be needed to present this approach and the format will be a live demonstration following the steps listed below.
In conclusion

A team can become much more inclusive in its operations both within and without.
Teams can commit to full the inclusion of all children and young people. Leaders can set out this as the new direction, create a sense of shared vision and work hard to take people with them both within and outside the organisation. Ultimately there will be a day-to-day management task and some shared figuring out of how every person will be included. We now know that this can be achieved.

We have explored over the series of blogs how a team can change with leadership, shared vision, community engagement and effective and diverse management. Ultimately team leaders and team members, using the wisdom and patience of Ghandi need to live the change they wish to see.

Ghandi was reversing the materialistic concept that conditions determine psychology. No, psychology could shape conditions. ‘What you think, you become’. (The life of Mahatma Gandhi, Louis Fischer, 1982)

Team Blog References

Asset Based Community Development Institute: (2005) Hidden Treasures. Community Building Workbook

De Bono, Edward. (1985) Six Thinking Hats

DFES : Head Teacher Standard 6 - Strengthening Community, Head teacher Standards. (2006)

The life of Mahatma Gandhi, Louis Fischer, 1982

Giangreco, M. (2002) Inclusion Cartoons

Newton, C. and Wilson, D., Creating Circles of Friends, Inclusive Solutions, 2005

Newton, C. and Wilson, D., Circles of Adults, Inclusive Solutions, 2006

O’Brien J. and O’Brien C. L. (2002) ‘Implementing Person centered Planning’ Inclusion Press. Toronto

Owen, Harrison: Open Space Technology: 2003

Pearpoint, J.(2002) ‘’Hints for Graphic Facilitators’’ Inclusion Press, Toronto

Pearpoint, J. Forest, M. and Snow, J.(1993) “The Inclusion Papers- Strategies to Make Inclusion Work”. Inclusion Press, Toronto.

Pearpoint, J. Forest. (1996) Solution Circles: http://www.inclusion.com/ttsolutioncircle.html

Schorr, Lisbeth – (1997) “Common Purpose – Strengthening Families and Neighbourhoods to Rebuild America”.

Wheatley, Margaret (2005) Finding our Way (BK Publishers)

Wilson, D. (2002) Teams for Inclusion: Special Children

Teams Problem Solving Together: Team 8

Wed, 21 May 2008 10:30:07 +0100

Teams problem solving together

Teams committed to effective inclusion will need to be great at joint problem solving together. They will need to be positive and solution oriented but will also need to be able to contain and process more painful and hard to resolve issues and emotions too. In some situations ‘bearing witness’, trying to restore hope, or just hanging in there through a very difficult time may be the most respectful responses to a child and family’s circumstances.

However in a myriad of other circumstances the instinct to get creative around hard to solve issues needs structured processes. One such tool is ‘Solution Circles’ which can be used for quick problem solving around stuck issues can be very powerful for all involved.

Open BOX

Solution Circles

A Creative Problem Solving Tool for getting unstuck
Designed by Jack Pearpoint and Marsha Forest (1996)

This is a short and powerful tool that takes no more than a half hour and is effective in helping a team member to get “unstuck” from a problem in life or work. ‘Solution Circles’ is a tool designed to build “community capacity” so fits well with our wheel of change. The process assumes and demonstrates that nearby people - in any community or work place have the capacity to help if asked. It requires a person to ASK - not an easy thing in our culture of the individual, privacy and ‘do it alone’. This tool puts all the values we espouse into practice and demonstrates that TOGETHER WE’RE BETTER.

Time required: No more than thirty minutes.
People per Solution circle: Best with 5-9.
Roles to be played:
〈 Problem Presenter (focus person)
〈 Process Facilitator (team manager, time keeper)
〈 Note Taker or Graphic Recorder
〈 Amazingly creative Thought Showering Team

The greater the diversity in the team the better.

Explain the steps to the teams in detail:

Step One: (6 minutes)
The problem presenter will have 6 uninterrupted minutes to outline the problem. The job of the process facilitator is to keep time and make sure no one interrupts. The recorder takes notes. Everyone else (the brainstormers) listen. If the problem presenter stops talking before the six minutes elapse, everyone else stays silent until the 6 minutes pass. This is key! The problem presenter gets 6 uninterrupted minutes.

Step two: (6 minutes)
This is a thought shower. Everyone chimes in with ideas about creative solutions to what they just heard. It is not a time to clarify the problem or to ask questions. It is not a time to give speeches, lectures or advice. The process facilitator must make sure this is truly a thought shower. Everyone gets a chance to give his or her brilliant ideas. No one must be allowed to dominate. The problem presenter listens - without interrupting. He/she must not talk or respond. We often give the person masking tape to facilitate their listening. It’s hard to just listen!

Step 3. (6 minutes)
Now the group can have a dialogue led by the problem presenter. This is time to explore and clarify the problem. Focus on the positive points only and not what can’t be done.

Step 4: (6 minutes)
The First Step. The focus person and the group decide on first steps that are doable within the next few days. A coach from the group volunteers to phone or see the person within 3 days and check if they took their first step.

Finally the group just does a round of words to describe the experience
and the recorder gives the record to the focus person. If in a large group, the
teams returns to the main group, debrief and continue. In our experiences people love this exercise and find that it generates action. It does not guarantee a solution, but it usually gets people “unstuck” and at least points to the next logical step.

Close BOX

Managing Teams: Team Hats! Team 7

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:31:39 +0100

Management

If enough quality groundwork has been done in the first three steps of the medicine wheel, then the management stage should almost be starting to shape itself. With the foundations of leadership, vision and community in place, the team is ready to be get into action and it will then grow and develop its own momentum.

So who is going to do what and when?
What does the action plan look like?
What resources will be needed?
Where will this work take place and when?
Where will this work be named in the Development or Improvement Plan?

Teams in action - Harnessing the diversity of a team

Teams need a range of gifts and strengths to be effective. They need a range of styles of thinking and acting if they are to avoid becoming stuck or ineffective when it comes to including children and young people with a wide range of difference and challenges.

In Howard Gardner’s latest book- Five Kinds of Minds(2007) we can usefully reflect on the distinctive thought styles of any group of individuals. Edward De Bono had previously provided many helpful, guiding ideas around ways of thinking with his ‘ 6 Thinking Hats’. We believe it is useful to consider how each 'Thinking Hat' reflects a different style of thinking for someone in an inclusive team or elsewhere. These are explained below:

* Red Hat:
Wearing the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. You try to think how other people will react emotionally.

* White Hat:
With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them. With this hat you analyse past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.

* Grey Hat:
Using Grey hat thinking, you look at all the negative possibilities of the decision or your team situation. You look at it cautiously and defensively. You try to see why it might not work. This hat is important because it highlights the weak points in any team plan or endeavour. It allows you to tackle weaknesses, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them. Grey Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Grey Hat thinking can be very useful, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.

* Yellow Hat:
The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

* Green Hat:
The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here.

* Blue Hat:
The Blue Hat stands for leadership and vision. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings or leading in teams. The Blue hat wearer listens to the perspectives of all the other hats and looks to the future. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Grey Hat thinking, and so forth.

** We propose an extra hat – the Sparkly Hat:
This is the hat of values. You wear this hat to name the deep values that underpin your work in a team for inclusion. We are doing this because it is important, because, for example, ‘this child has a human right to belong!’ Human rights, equal opportunities, the end to discrimination and segregation.

By naming and reflecting upon who is wearing which hat and when, creativity and team processes can be harnessed and strengthened. Typical patterns and habits of hat wearing can be interrupted and a new hat reached for. In this way a new even more creative team emerges.

The more diverse the team the richer and more inclusive it can become. This is very evident when problem solving engages a wider group of team members than usual. We have noticed many times how the involvement of a setting’s secretary/admin person or their site manager has enhanced solutions and strategies to stuck issues.

Community Circles: Beyond Benefits-Team 6

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:58:46 +0100

Community Circles

In 2007 we at Inclusive Solutions began to create community gatherings in Nottinghamshire that were based on full inclusion principles. All were welcome to explore how all could get sufficient meaning, friendship and money in their lives. Based on the highly successful work of Lois Smidt and Beyond Welfare in Iowa, in the U.S. Allies and participants were gathered and wants – needs – offers were shared.

This process welcomes participants into community, assists them in identifying their strengths as well as challenges, and introduces them to the values of
relationship, reciprocity and leadership development that infuse
everything that BW does. Allies are also recruited, trained and supported for intentional
friendships with BW participants that are based on common interests.
The safety and stability, self-sufficiency, and well-being of the BW participant family remain at the center of these relationships. BW
assists families that are particularly isolated in enlisting a Circle of Support, a group of 3-4 volunteers that meets monthly to understand
and support the goals of the family. (Hidden Treasures. Community Building Workbook: Asset Based Community Development Institute: 2005)

This kind of community enlisting seems to fit well with the work of Kretzmann and McKnight (1993), Wheatley (1995) as well as that encouraged by Mike Green and others involved in what has become known as Asset Based Community Development.(REF)

It is interesting to note the linkage between the theme of community engagement in change and the ‘Head teacher Standards’ and Standard 6 - Strengthening Community in particular, which would be just as relevant to the work of managers of Early Years settings:

Schools exist in a distinctive social context, which has a direct impact on what happens inside the school. School leadership should commit to engaging with the internal and external school community to secure equity and entitlement. Head teachers should collaborate with other schools in order to share expertise and bring positive benefit to their own and other schools. They should work collaboratively at both strategic and operational levels with parents and carers and across multiple agencies for the well-being of all children. Head teachers share responsibility for leadership of the wider educational system and should be aware that school improvement and community development are interdependent.”
Head Teacher Standard 6 - Strengthening Community (2006)

So opening up participation, community engagement, focusing on capacity with maximal and inclusive involvement beyond the team members themselves are the processes crucial to building a team that shares a vision of full inclusion.

See http://www.inclusive-solutions.com/communitycircles.asp for much more...

How to bring the community with you?

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:08:01 +0100

Teams and Communities

People only support what they create. Life insists on its freedom to participate and can never be coerced into accepting someone else’s plans. (Whitely, 2005)

Who will you need to take with you? This is a crucial stage. Who are the key stake holders in the change towards a more inclusive team? How can you best enrol their support? What about the wider community in which your team operates?

How do we take people with us?
Wheatley(2005) argues that we should abandon mechanistic assumptions about organisational change as meaning behaves more like energy. Following this logic we do not have to achieve a critical mass, or roll out programmes across a whole setting or community. Instead we can work locally finding creative ideas that are meaningful to one area of the team or system. Energy generated here will lead to other networks taking notice.

She argues strongly for engaging participation processes when undergoing change. We should involve everybody who cares and anyone likely to be affected by changes.

We haven’t yet absorbed the simple truth that we can’t force anybody to change. We can only involve them in the change process from the beginning and see what’s possible. If change becomes meaningful to them, they will change. If we want their support, we must welcome them as co-creators. (Wheatley, 2005)

In 2006, we at Inclusive Solutions were involved in a consultation with the communities of all the emerging Children’s Centres in Oxfordshire. Oxfordshire was keen that local residents and parents’ ideas and vision for the future inform them on how their teams of the future should ‘feel’.

Many thought that the Children’s Centre should be a Focus for Community Building and Connection: This was a strongly recurring theme in all of the sessions we conducted. In some visions this was expressed as the creation of a co-operative community, a village of support where the gifts of all were recognised and used (“a place where we can learn what each has to give”). In other visions there was a wish for the aims and activities of the Centre to be owned and driven by local people. In yet others the centre was a place to gather for mutual support and friendship. The essence of the aspiration being expressed here was to take charge of the future for the community’s children.

The available literature (e.g. Kretzmann and McKnight 1993) on ‘Community Building’ strongly suggests that communities cannot be built (or rebuilt) by focusing on their needs, problems and deficiencies. Rather, community building starts with the process of locating assets, skills and capacities of residents, local associations and institutions. The vision being expressed here is radically different from the approach that begins with identifying the problems and needs within a community and it is worth rehearsing some of the drawbacks of a needs-driven approach to problem solving and community building:

〈 Viewing a community as an endless list of problems and needs leads directly to the much-criticised fragmentation of services and efforts to provide solutions and thus provokes the subsequent calls for a ‘one stop shop’ of services. It also denies the basic community wisdom (expressed throughout the visions described here) which realises problems are tightly interconnected and in fact symptomatic of the breakdown of a community’s own problem solving capacities.

〈 Targeting resources based on needs directs funding not to residents but to service providers – a consequence not always planned for or effective

〈 Making resources available on the basis of needs can have negative effects on the nature of local community leadership. If, for example, a measure of effective leadership is the ability to attract resources, then local leaders/Centre managers are in effect, being forced to devalue their families and their communities by highlighting their problems and needs and by ignoring their capacities and strengths

〈 Providing resources on the basis of needs underlines the perception that only outside experts can provide real help. And therefore the relationships that count most for local residents are no longer those inside the community, those neighbour-to-neighbour links and informal supports much mentioned in these consultations. Instead the most important relationships become those that involve the expert, the social worker, the health provider, the funder. Once again the relationships that bind communities together are weakened.

〈 At best reliance on identifying and meeting needs as the sole policy guide will only ensure a maintenance and survival strategy targeted at isolated individual clients, not a development plan that can involve the energies of an entire community.

So - if we accept that trying to address the big issues facing Children’s Centre and other teams concerned with the education, care and socialisation of children, will not be achieved by simply increasing Services – what else is needed?

One of the best-researched answer to this question that we are aware of is detailed within Lisbeth Schorr’s book – “Common Purpose – Strengthening Families and Neighbourhoods to Rebuild America”. She lists what she terms the ‘Seven Attributes of Highly Effective Programs’ as follows:

1. Successful programs are comprehensive, flexible responsive and persevering
2. Successful programs see children within the context of their families
3. Successful programs deal with families as parts of neighbourhoods and communities
4. Successful programs have a long-term, preventative orientation, a clear mission and continue to evolve over time
5. Successful programs are well managed by competent individuals with clearly identifiable skills
6. Staffs of successful programs are trained and supported to provide high-quality, responsive services
7. Successful programs operate in settings that encourage practitioners to build strong relationships based on mutual trust and respect.

Visioning: Teams for Inclusion 4

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:12:23 +0100

Vision

Teams Visioning

There is an old Japanese proverb, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

So what would a team truly committed to the inclusion of all children in mainstream settings actually look like? By inviting key stakeholders and frontline practitioners to be involved in collectively visioning, a shared picture will emerge - especially if the process of creating this is well facilitated.

Visioning or dreaming is about going beyond the ethos and culture that defines your school, setting or team at present.

o How would we like to see this change?
o Can we create a dream future that all can commit to?
o What value base is it rooted in?
o What blue-sky thoughts are associated with the future?

This vision or dream space is not grounded in reality but reaches for a changed world. By describing our dreams for the future of an inclusive team and its work we will set a clear direction. We may not reach this entire dream in our life times but we may well hit key staging posts along the way. We will certainly be clear where we are heading.

Care is needed in this stage of the Medicine Wheel. Facilitators and leaders need to resist the temptation to create flow diagrams or write outcomes. If you need these they can be done later when we are in the ‘Management’ phase of the wheel.

Martin Luther King reached for a dream, a dream of racial equality in the States, a dream he perhaps never thought he would see realised in his own lifetime. It was genuinely a dream and most definitely not a set of aims and objectives.

“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about”
Margaret Wheatley – ‘Turning to One Another’ (2002)

We have discovered that giving a team the opportunity to pause and reflect on what matters most to them about the work they do is a very powerful experience. The act of listening to each other creates relationship and strengthens trust and inclusion within the team - in creating a shared vision, groups of people build a sense of commitment together.

“ I was totally blown away, when I realised how passionate people were about inclusion”………….

Teams can develop images of ‘the future we want to create together’, along with the values that will be important in getting there and the goals they want to see achieved along the way. Unfortunately, many people still think ‘vision’ is the top leader’s job. In schools, Children’s Centres and other settings, the ‘vision task’ usually falls to the manager, headteacher and/or the governors, or it comes in a glossy document from the local authority or the Government. But visions based on authority are not sustainable.
Drawing on the planning tools MAPS and PATH (Pearpoint, Forest and O’Brien 1997) and other facilitation sources we use both process and graphic facilitation to enable groups to build their picture of what they would love to see happening within their organisation /community in the future and we encourage this to be a positive naming, not just a list of the things they want to avoid.

“So nice to reflect and realise what a long way we have come”…………..”

When working with teams to create a shared vision we have found it always worth beginning the session with a range of activities and reflections designed to set the tone for the work to be done. This needs following up with a session lasting at least an hour where all present reflect on what matters most to them about their work, what they would love to see happening if there were no constraints on time, people, resources and so forth. Individuals in twos and threes can then be asked to share their thinking first with each other then with the whole group. Participants can be encouraged to use their imaginations to the fullest and to stretch their thinking as far as they can as they describe what they would love to see happening in the future - even if they have no idea of how they could get there. This part of the process is not about being realistic – it is about establishing the direction of travel.

The group will need to become more grounded as the session progresses. As people give voice to their thinking the essence of what they say can be captured on a large and colourful graphic mounted at the front of a room – similar to the image at the start of this section. The capturing is best done by someone who has learned graphic facilitation skills.

Typically facilitators can use person centred planning tools such as MAP and PATH to create vision and to do planning with any team going through a number of the following:

〈 The Story So Far – a valuable activity for new or re-organised teams where trust levels may not be high – this activity can last for up to an hour and asks team members to describe their professional journeys so far, the high and low points, the key changes. The end graphic poster typically captures the complexity of the past and the ever-changing territory the team works within. For some teams this process is key to allowing them to take the step into the future that building a shared vision requires.There can be a therapeutic value in naming the past, literally drawing a line around it and moving on.
〈 Headline Themes – a 15 – 20 minute activity which asks the group to capture the essence of their vision in 3 or 4 memorable ‘headline’ summary phrases.
〈 Naming the Nightmare – no more than 5 to 10 minutes is needed for this activity. Here we ask people to name their ‘nightmares’ - the things they would hate to see happening in their organisation or community. We don’t dwell on this nor do we encourage the same level of detailed description that we expect in the vision. However we have learned that some teams/individuals need the extra energy that is released by naming and working to avoid the nightmare.
〈 A Year from Now – a 30 – 45 minute activity which asks the team to imagine they have traveled in time and are now a year ahead from today and are looking back at what they have achieved. The rule is that the events they remember must be ‘positive and possible’ This is a more ‘playful’ activity and often releases energy and creativity in the team
〈 Naming Roadblocks and Barriers – a 45-minute activity which asks the team to name what they see as the important barriers that stand in the way of achieving their vision. We encourage the group to be as specific as they can about these roadblocks as they write them onto cards, which are then posted over the vision graphic. The team then problem solves together in twos and threes devising ways of going round, removing or reducing the roadblocks until a point is reached where most of the vision is uncovered again. This is an energising activity for teams that feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of issues confronting them
〈 Who will we need to take with us on the Journey towards the Vision – a 20 minute activity that asks the team to name key people who will need to be fully on board before work on the vision can begin in earnest. This activity begins with the people in the room who are invited to sign up to the vision there and then. It also asks the team to create a (small) list of people that the vision needs to be shared with and seek their support. With the creation of this list the team begin to chart some their first actions from the day
〈 Who are we? – Gifts, Strengths and Talents – a 30 minute activity which encourages the team to take explicit stock of their capacities and what they already have going for them as they begin working towards the vision. We do this in various ways – by asking individuals to talk about a time in their professional lives (or beyond) when they felt they were at their best, by asking the group as a whole to notice and name each others gifts and talents. This is a strong reminder for teams of the wealth of knowledge and experience that is already and always in the room
〈 Charting Specific Actions – a 30 to 40 minute activity done initially in pairs and then in groups of four. The team members are asking to start naming a sample of actions they can do in the next few days/week/month and how these actions relate to the vision. We actively coach the group to name actions that they themselves are going to do - not simply a good idea for someone else to do and which are more than just ‘good intentions’

These ideas have emerged from the work of Jack Pearpoint, Marsha Forest, John O’Brien and our own unpublished experiences of facilitating many teams across the UK. They are processes designed to promote and support the inclusion of individuals in the mainstream world and so fit very well with teams working for inclusion.

These visioning and planning processes work best with external facilitation but even without this the creation of a shared articulated vision with a plan that supports the direction of the dream will be essential for any inclusive team.

Seneca said, “Our plans miscarry if they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”

Trust - The cement that binds the solid inclusive team

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:39:13 +0000

The cement that holds team members together and that at best is found between leaders and their teams is trust. When present this magical gel will bring out the best in any group of people, but it is so easily lost, damaged or even completely absent.

A team may crumble and lose all strength and solidarity when there are trust issues present. In the social sciences, the subtleties of trust are a subject of ongoing research. In sociology and psychology the degree to which one party trusts another is a measure of belief in the honesty, benevolence and competence of the other party.

It is not hard to create a checklist or even a bedside book of trust by asking any group what are the qualities of the relationship that they have with someone they truly trust. Sadly some people can trust none but even they know what it is to almost trust someone. We have been asking groups about their experience of trusting relationships for the last 7 years. Here are some typical responses:

Typical qualities of Trust

Non-Judgemental
Honest
Open
Good listening
Challenging and direct
Always holding your best interests at heart
Shared disclosure

Typical Behaviour around someone not trusted

Closed body language
Not sharing anything personal
Sometimes assertive or even aggressive
Not relaxed - tense
Talking about the mistrusted person behind their back
Memos in triplicate
Gossip
Acting in an untrustworthy fashion!

When trust is lost people can act in extreme untrustworthy ways, not because there is anything wrong with them. They do not suffer from a new syndrome LOTS (Loss of Trust Syndrome!) they simply do not feel trusted.

Leaders do well to cultivate trust within teams. Trust will be needed if team members are to work hard on making inclusion a reality. Teams simply need trust to function at their best. Teams where trust is present and valued will also model the way for others. What do leaders and mangers need to do to cultivate trust? The same list as above. They need to embody and model these qualitiesand simply be:

Non-Judgemental
Honest
Open
Good listening
Challenging and direct
Always holding your best interests at heart
Shared disclosure

Is this quick overnight work? No!! Trust takes time to grow.... Nurture it.

Leadership: Teams for Inclusion 2

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 15:41:55 +0000

Leadership

There is a better way. Our team can be completely committed to full inclusion for all the children in our care. We will work to ensure their inclusion in our school or setting and in the surrounding community however different or challenging their additional needs may appear. When those same children leave us we will work to ensure their safe passage to the next mainstream setting - be it school, college or employment. If we have to accompany parents, or prepare the way to ensure the success of this inclusive transition then we will do this. We will resist the voices and pressures to move children into more segregated and special settings away from their friends and communities.

Who will we include? How about anyone who wants to attend, to participate, to be present?

All really will mean all.

There are many busy activities that any team member could engage in, but what essential or important actions will an inclusive team engage in? WE need to be clear about what a team will and will not be doing. Its too easy to just add tasks to already overburdened people. Let us be clear. The work of the Nottingham City Inclusion Facilitation team reflected in the following table illustrates what we think an inclusive team should and should not be doing:

Some things Teams for Inclusion
SHOULD be doing

Enshrining JOINT WORKING as the team's modus operandi.
Dedicating time to team building and recognisingthat this is a 'time hungry' but essential task
Recognising that inclusion is about human rights, social justice and having insight into the disability equality issues that underpin the inclusion movement
Using everyday language and making sense
Having high expectations
Being comfortable with saying ‘I don't know what to do in these circumstances but together we can work it out'
Asking 'Would it be alright to do this if the child was not disabled?'
Valuing individual team member’s strengths and gifts and supporting them to become even better at what they already do well
Reaching out and empowering parents (particularly from socially disadvantaged groups) to become advocates for their child within the peer group and the wider community
Continually asking 'what is inclusion?' and developing an understanding that inclusion is a process, not a fixed point to be reached
Identifying potential leaders for inclusion within mainstream settings and investing substantially in their development
Using 'only as special as necessary' as a key guide to the planning of support
Recognising and developing the role of typical peers in the inclusion process, having insights into the benefits for all

What Teams for Inclusion
should NOT be doing

Allocating patches that are the 'sole' responsibility of the individual team member. They should not be encouraging the 'myth of the expert'.
Focusing solely on working out what is wrong with the child and identifying and meeting special needs Inventing and valuing jargon that only one person in a thousand understands
Predicting long term limits and plateaux; inviting low aspirations from others
Handing over responsibility to someone else
Seeking to recreate special school systems and structures in mainstream settings - e.g. establishing 'inclusion rooms'
Establishing hierarchies by profession and salary
Having little or no involvement with parents of children they are supporting
Being comfortable with and investing in the status quo.
Not accepting that change is inevitable and resisting becoming active agents for change
Allocating strictly equal shares of team time to each of the schools they serve
Viewing more as better. Multiple referrals create further barriers to belonging
Visiting schools only to see pupils on a caseload in isolation from their peers and classes

Whilst written and published 5 years ago the clear direction contained above still appears fresh and relevant to those seeking to develop interagency and multi professional teams today. Many emerging reorganised Support Services and Children’s Centres are grappling with just these challenges.

Who will be part of teams committed to inclusion?
The above gives some idea of what an inclusive team might be doing. What will such a team actually look like? We think teams who see inclusion as a central part of their work will probably not be dominated by experts but will be made up of a diverse range of practitioners with a range of skills, talents and experiences. Diversity and creativity will be their strength. A range of different thinking and learning styles will need to be present. The team will need strong leaders, influential ‘people people’, thinkers, system changers, reflectors, problem solvers, and deeply creative types! Let us not forget those who will be there because they care passionately or those who are living daily with the experience and challenges of exclusion and inclusion.

Some people will not be comfortable with working in such a team and may need support to find a different role or work elsewhere. Facilitative leadership and systems need to be in place for this to happen as respectfully, smoothly and as easily as possible. Whilst the work of the team is inclusion, not all will be suited to this work and we should not confuse ourselves into thinking we can include all workers in our team whatever their style, attitudes or beliefs. The stakes for including children and young people are too high for passengers or destructive practitioners. Our inclusive instincts will want all people to be part of the future but the leadership from this team must ensure that our support to individuals does not outweigh damage to the inclusion of children. Destructive individuals can still experience belonging in another part of the world, possibly for some away from children and families. Alternatively some individuals will need a sabbatical or a long break before they can be effective. The great Marsha Forest once said:

“I hear human service people say - I’m so tired - well leave it - get a rest. Then come back!’

There is much wisdom in her words.

Trust
The cement that holds team members together and that at best is found between leaders and their teams is trust. When present this magical gel will bring out the best in any group of people, but it is so easily lost, damaged or even completely absent. A team may crumble and lose all strength and solidarity when there are trust issues present. In the social sciences, the subtleties of trust are a subject of ongoing research. In sociology and psychology the degree to which one party trusts another is a measure of belief in the honesty, benevolence and competence of the other party. It is not hard to create a checklist or even a bedside book of trust by asking any group what are the qualities of the relationship that they have with someone they truly trust. Sadly some people can trust none but even they know what it is to almost trust someone. We have been asking groups about their experience of trusting relationships for the last 7 years. Here are some typical responses:

Typical qualities of Trust

Non-Judgemental
Honest
Open
Good listening
Challenging and direct
Always holding your best interests at heart
Shared disclosure

Typical Behaviour around someone not trusted

Closed body language
Not sharing anything personal
Sometimes assertive or even aggressive
Not relaxed
Talking about the mistrusted person behind their back
Acting in an untrustworthy fashion!

Leaders do well to cultivate trust within teams. Trust will be needed if team members are to work hard on making inclusion a reality. Teams simply need trust to function at their best. Teams where trust is present and valued will also model the way for others.

www.inclusive-solutions.com

Teams for Inclusion: 1... first of a series on Teams for Inclusion

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 15:31:09 +0000

Teams for Inclusion

Never dive alone
International Scuba Divers Law

When to consider building a team?

When in doubt build a team.

When the going gets tough and the inclusion of a child or young person is beginning to seem extremely difficult if not impossible many will conclude that the child should no longer be present. We would like to challenge this. Why do we move so quickly to assuming the child is in the wrong place? Surely the real question should not be ‘do they belong here?’ – but rather - ‘what team support is needed here for this to work?’

Or even more fundamental, ‘who needs a team around them at this time?’
Who needs the team? Who is struggling with the inclusion most?

The young person, their practitioner or teacher, their parent or even a member of the local support services?

Whatever the answer a team may need to be built, rallied or reformed. The nature of and number in that team will depend upon the nature of the situation. Diversity of membership will most surely be important to strengthen the quality of the support and of the ideas generated.
Creating effective teams for inclusion requires a courageous capacity for understanding and nurturing change both within the team and with those who the team work with.

Understanding Change – The Medicine Wheel

〈 The Deer looks down from the mountain and leads the herd
〈 The eagle soars high and sees the whole picture below and ahead
〈 Mice scurry around busily together building community
〈 Bears lumber slowly but makes things happen

Harrison Owen in his work on ‘Open Space Technology’ depicts the ancient Medicine Wheel as above (Owen, 2003). This is derived from centuries of tradition among First Nation Americans and has informed many cultures in different ways. We have found this an extremely powerful metaphor for understanding the process of team and organisational change and renewal.

The wheel of change begins in the north with a leading idea, for us – there is a better way of creating a team for inclusion. Travelling clockwise to the east we develop a shared vision of what this could look like in our setting, school or community. Then moving south we ask who needs to come with us on the journey. We wish to take as many community members along with us as we can. In an Early Years setting , this would mean enrolling the support of manager, the wider staff group, parents and ultimately children. Finally, at the west, we manage and implement the idea. We take action and turn the inclusive team into reality.

The cycle of this medicine wheel is an excellent way to view change processes for any team, organisation or community. When we contemplate change, the risk is always that we will jump prematurely from the big ideas (leadership) to practice (management) and ignore the other two important phases of creating vision and engaging the wider community.

www.inclusive-solutions.com

Support Services and Restorative Language and Practice

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:53:40 +0000

Peter Keane talking at an Inclusive Solutions training event about work in South Tyneside regarding the links between Restorative Interventions and Peer Mediation.He also describes some of the challenges of Peer Mediation recruitment and his journey towards no longer ‘solution giving’. Finally he reflects on the reactive nature of Support Services and what is really needed by front line teachers in classrooms.

We like it!

Relationship Manager Works Restoratively

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 14:52:32 +0000

Alison describes her restorative work on a follow up to some training on Restorative Interventions by Colin and Derek of Inclusive Solutions. We are delighted she has the senior job of Relationships manager at Sea View School in South Tyneside and this school have created a Relationships Policy. We have been promoting this as an alternative to Behaviour Policy for some years so were so please that this school had the vision to make this great appointment.

www.inclusive-solutions.com

Good Manners Towards People with Autism: Derek Wilson

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:24:03 +0100

1. Find out as much as you can about the particular needs and sensitivities of a person with autism before you meet them. Ask the person or the people who know them best about the kinds of arrangements that will help the person with autism feel comfortable.

2. People with autism have highly sensitive sensory systems and because of this they can easily become overstimulated/overwhelmed in many everyday environments. Many of the seemingly unusual things that people with autism might do are their way of limiting the levels of sensory stimulation they are experiencing. You should always consider what aspects of the environment (e.g. noise levels, lighting levels, odours) might be making be making a person uncomfortable and be prepared to eliminate/reduce these – even if you do not notice the sights, sounds, smells etc yourself.

3. As a rule - speak softly to people with autism. Sensitivity to the tone/volume of people’s voices is often high - particularly in new or stressful situations. Be aware that people with autism who are exposed to sudden or loud noises must protect themselves and cannot concentrate on anything else at the same time. Whenever possible prewarn people about noises that might bother them (e.g. fire alarm tests, time buzzers and bells etc) to give them a chance to prepare and protect themselves

4. Take great care about making physical contact/touching people with autism. Many people with autism have extreme sensitivity to touch – if in doubt – ask – do not assume that something like a handshake or a pat on the arm is no big deal.

5. Never expect people with autism to sit in one place for long periods of time. Movement is an essential part of staying comfortable – accept that people might want to stand during meetings and build in short breaks with the opportunity to walk around

6. Some people with autism are especially sensitive to smells of many kinds - including perfumes and other cosmetic products – limit your use of these or eliminate as far as possible until you know the person’s particular sensitivities

7. Accept that people with autism may not feel able to make eye contact with you - especially on a first meeting. No eye contact does not mean the person is not listening/or is not interested in you or what you are saying. Many people with autism say they can either look at someone or listen to them - but not both at the same time.

8. Be prepared to wait longer than you might think necessary for a person with autism to reply/respond to a question or request. Many people with autism have difficulty in making the movements (including the movements needed to speak) they want to make and need time to organise themselves.

9. Some people with autism are unable to use their voices at all – do not assume this means they do not understand what you are saying or doing – if in doubt it is always best to make the ‘least dangerous assumption’

10. Ask a person with autism if they need help before giving it.

11. Many people with autism find mealtimes/eating particularly stressful because of the many sensory issues associated with eating. Do not organise meetings/discussions over a meal

12. Allow people with autism to smell and touch things. The senses of touch and smell are often helpful in allowing them to identify people and objects when their other senses are being unreliable

13. If you change anything in an environment with which a person with autism is familiar, warn them about it in advance explaining what changes have had to be made. Order, routine and structure are very important to most people with autism – so be prepared to compromise if the change you want to make is not able to be tolerated by the person

14. Remember people (and that includes people with autism) do things for a reason. Some of the things people with autism need to do (e.g. flapping their hands, rocking, making noises) to be comfortable or reduce their levels of anxiety can be hard to understand until you know the person. Allow them to do what they need to do and accept that this may mean they need to leave the room/meeting for a time to gather themselves

15. Do not expect consistent reactions and behaviour from people with autism – like all of us, they will have good days and more difficult days in dealing with their sensory sensitivities – assume they are doing what they need to do to feel comfortable at any one time

Attachment Theory

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:00:11 +0000

I also think that here is the place to talk about ‘Attachment Theory’ and its relevance to this proposed paradigm shift. One obvious reason is that this body of theory sits clearly within the psychological domain and therefore has a unique sort of validity. The other reason is that it has such relevance to the topic of ‘relationships’. How could you understand ‘attachment’ other than within a relationships paradigm? However we need to be very careful not to let a medical/deficit model in by the back door! One obvious problem is that attachment theory has been the subject of to attempts to create individual pathologies/typologies – e.g. Heather Geddes’ latest book ‘Attachment in the Classroom’ spends big chunks of time categorizing young people as having ‘Avoidant Attachment’, ‘Resistant/Ambivalent Attachment’ or ‘Disorganised/Disorientated Attachment’ disorders and proceeds to outline the treatment options for each type. This is a shame because the book an otherwise excellent account of how teachers can use peer group, curriculum and their own resources to meet needs and build relationships. Attachment theory can give us clues and pointers that might help us understand how or why a child seems to relate to us in a particular way - but it can do no more than that – there is no substitute for building a relationship with the young person and coming to understand our contribution to their distress.

(This blog is an intro for a longer piece we will be writing during 2007 on behaviour/relationships and implications for how support services support teachers. All comments welcome at this early stage)

Derek Wilson
Co-Founder
Inclusive Solutions

A RELATIONSHIPS BUILDING PARADIGM

Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:38:17 +0000

So – rather than continuing to attack the medical model approach as ineffective – let’s put our energies into developing an alternative paradigm and let it be one that recognises from the start that ‘behaviour’ is not a stand alone characteristic of a person – all behaviour occurs in a context and that context is other people and the relationships the person has or does not have with them.
Herb Lovett put it like this:
“We are all in a constant dialogue with the present and the past, with our inner selves and our outer selves, and the needs of both the individual and the group. It seems strangely limited - and limiting – to focus on only one person among many and on only one aspect of that person…”
(Learning to Listen - Paul Brookes Publishing 1996)
And if we allow the ‘relationships’ word into the behaviour arena then a new set of productive questions starts to surface:

- How can we help the young person keep/strengthen his existing relationships and make new ones? What can we do to intentionally build relationships?
- How can we help a young person make a contribution to others?
- How can we help the young person have more choices in his day? (Remembering that a ‘choice’ is only really a ‘choice’ if what you choose matters to someone else i.e. it is part of a relationship – anything short of this is phoney and young people see through it instantly)
- How will we plan to support and nurture those whose job it is to help the young person in all of the above? This is a key piece of a relationships paradigm intervention and it’s a question that barely gets a look in under the ‘what’s wrong’ paradigm. Expanding on this question leads us back to the work of Gerda Hanko and her teacher support groups, our own work on ‘Circle of Adults’ and maybe the, as yet unpublished, work by Chris Johnson and Lynn Turner and their ‘Big Red Bus” approach.

A WORD OR TWO ON ‘INTERVENTIONS’, ‘PLANS’, ‘BEHAVIOUR’ and RELATIONSHIPS

Thu, 4 Jan 2007 11:43:26 +0000

Children and young people who show difficult behaviours are usually the subject of a ‘Behaviour Support Plan’ at some point in their school careers. It is rare that they are asked if they want a Plan, let alone invited to the planning meeting. Instead the Plan is typically developed by people who are relative ‘strangers’ to the young person (the school’s EP or visiting support teacher for behaviour) – often people who have spent less than a couple of hours ‘observing’ the young person. In essence this approach to managing behaviour is driven by the following questions:

- What’s wrong with this child?
- How can we fix him?

And somewhere down the line there’s a near inevitable 3rd question that is likely to be asked:

- What do we do with him if we can’t fix him?

And we’ve all been down that road – we know where it leads….
These are all very familiar questions and, of course, stem from a medical model paradigm of what to do when things get difficult. It is easy to underestimate just how deep seated the beliefs are that underlie this paradigm. There are more labels and treatments for behaviour than ever before and this growth shows no signs of slowing in the near future – despite the fact that it is also widely believed that the effectiveness of labeling and treating behaviour is highly limited.

Derek Wilson: Co Founder Inclusive Solutions

I have a dream.....

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:26:36 +0000

We always love this speech as it reminds us of our dream for full inclusion of all children. Having named this dream and mentioned the speech today with the Kindred Spirits group in Walsall we were approached by John who had this story...

Anne is a year 6 looked after child who has been in foster care along with her year 7 sister for a significant time. It is hoped that she will attain national curriculum level 3 in English although she is still operating at level 2. Recently in school they have done work on “leaders”. Last week Anne pestered me to let her look on the Internet for Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech. With a bit of Google guidance from me we found both the text and an MP3 audio version which I saved onto my USB data stick. This week she asked if she could listen to it again. On playing it she adjusted the slider on Windows Media Player back and forth to find parts which she recognised and joined in, reciting sections she had learnt by hear. The part she replayed and recited several times was:
“One day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
Anne’s foster carers are a black couple who have a 3 year old son.

Watch the video of Martin Luther King’s amazing speech

John Taylor
Education support Team for Looked After Children.
Education Walsall
john.taylor@we.serco.com

Welcome Key in Action

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:33:07 +0000

Rashmi Barker is a Youth Worker in Blackburn with Darwin and she told us this great story when we met her there this week.Listen to how by building up her relationship with the headteacher of a large secondary school she was able to convince him of the need to be more welcoming with pupils.The results spoke for themselves and were soon enshrined in policy.
We can all be advocates for the ‘inclusive welcome’ whatever unchanging‘suits’ we are confronted with!

Killing Children

Wed, 8 Nov 2006 11:19:04 +0000

Royal College urging Euthanasia for very disabled children

Once again in history people are calling for killing children who are born with severe impairments. So quickly the history and struggles of disabled people and their families is forgotten. Not so long back, Nazis had the same idea. Let us remember that alongside the tough battles families face when their child is disabled and viewed by too many medics and so many others in society as of less value that they also bring gifts into the world.

What are their gifts?

These include:

Community building
Inviting love and generosity
Connecting people
Requiring problem solving from educators and carers
Slowing people up: grounding them
Teaching us about difference and acceptance of ourselves and others

Kill children who bring such gifts into the world? I don’t think so. Let us learn to value each and every one instead!

www.inclusive-solutions.com

Pass a cow

Wed, 8 Nov 2006 10:23:15 +0000

Reciprocal Relationships are important for us all whatever our difference, needs or impairments.We all need opportunities to give to pass on what has been provided to us. Just as African families can gratefully receive live cows from generous farmers in the UK and pass on the calves of those cows to other families so can a child who has been the focus of a circle of friends become a circle member for another pupil.The challenge is to ensure that all who receive get a chance to give! Its a fundamental part of being a human being.

Send a Cow is a Christian charity that enables poor farmers in Africa to become self-reliant by providing them with livestock, training and advice. We work with some of the most vulnerable groups in Africa, including children orphaned by war, families affected by AIDS, and disabled people.

Accommodations within Relationships

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:32:30 +0100

Anyone in a long term relationship, especially those 20 plus years kind, has learned something of accommodating to others in a relationship. However much love there is within that relationship there will be issues that it is hard to live with including these possibles:

1. snoring?
2. mood swings?
3. noises
4. habits from nail biting to scratching
5. attitudes

I could go on... Somehow though accommodations have been made, or otherwise it would have been impossible to stay with that person? We stay because it is worth it for love or friendship.

Here are some fascinating clues as to what it will take to build a more inclusive community in which we can coexist peacefully with each other. Consider what you do to accommodate significant others in your life... what do you do? What are the compromises, boundaries and coping mechanisms that are in place to keep that relationship functional?

* Polite or not so polite reminders?
* Regular Challenges?
* Adaptation?
* Ignore?
* Look away?
* Switch off or out?
* Support?
* Continue to try and shape?

Take longer in consideration of those who stay in your life through love, friendship or family ties whose behaviour is just plain difficult! How do you live with them? How do you maintain your relationship with them? Here are the clues to true inclusion!

Colin Newton

Ezine

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:27:05 +0100

We provide a free termly ezine to hundreds of people across the UK and the wider world who are committed to inclusion. This Ezine, a combination of magazine and email, provides national and international updates on inclusion developments and challenges. Ideas and practical support are always present in the Ezine and we lots of very positive feedback. Why not email us today and receive your own copy?

Check out back copies here!

Why group by Ability?

Wed, 24 May 2006 14:52:25 +0100

Grouping by Ability? No way does it work!

Key Research Findings

Organizing students in heterogeneous cooperative learning groups at least once a week has a significant effect on learning (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).

Low-ability students perform worse when grouped in homogeneous ability groups (Kulik & Kulik, 1991, 1997; Lou et al, 1996)

We hate the label 'low ability' and find it meaningless in the face of Multiple Intelligences work or when viewing pupils from a 'Gifts' perspective. Yet grouping by ability is still a dominant approach in primary and secondary education across UK.

Where is the research to support the efficacy of such activity?

'Students of low ability actually perform worse when they are placed in homogenous groups' Marzano, 2005.

This American research is supported by that carried out by NFER in 1998 concluded ' there are no significant differences between streaming, setting and mixed ability teaching on pupil achievement'. Also they conclude that: 'within homogenous groups teachers are predisposed to make negative judgments of low ability pupils which, in turn, negatively affects these pupils' self perceptions, levels of achievement and experience of schooling'. (Streaming, Setting and grouping by ability, NFER,1998

In other words pupils taught together, often in sets or withdrawal groups know why they are together and feel really bad about it.

For more information on grouping check out the American National Association of School Psychologists position on grouping by ability.

Inclusion Research

Fri, 19 May 2006 08:25:38 +0100

The research is clear to us. The human rights issue is even clearer. All children should be in mainstream schools and no more children should be placed in special schools.
Yes there will be problems to solve if this dream comes true, but there are now anyway! Lets move on. Work on figuring it out. Its time to change!
There is plenty of research if you need it.....
Check out this unequivocal quote in the TASH Journal Spring 2004 from Mary Falvey – Professor at California State University in LA:   ‘’Since (1977) hundreds of rigorous research studies have been undertaken to determine the effectiveness of integrating and including students with severe disabilities. As a result of a comprehensive review of the extant literature by myself and my colleagues, we were unable to identify even a single research article that that found that segregated service delivery models are more effective than integrated models for students with severe disabilities.”
The 2020 campaign is led by disabled people with the support of many allies of which Inclusive Solutions is one. It is a campaign to end the practice of educating children and young people with extra needs in separate, segregated schools, colleges, units or classes by the year 2020.
 Instead we want all young people to have the right to learn together in restructured mainstream provision, based on the principles of inclusion, equality and social justice.

Ten Reasons for Inclusion
Inclusive education is a human right, it’s good education and it makes good social sense
HUMAN RIGHTS  1 All children have the right to learn together. 2 Children should not be devalued or discriminated against by being excluded or sent away because of their disability or learning difficulty. 3 Disabled adults, describing themselves as special school survivors, are demanding an end to segregation. 4 There are no legitimate reasons to separate children for their education. Children belong together -- with advantages and benefits for everyone. They do not need to be protected from each other. 
GOOD EDUCATION  5 Research shows children do better, academically and socially, in inclusive settings. 6 There is no teaching or care in a segregated school which cannot take place in an ordinary school. 7 Given commitment and support, inclusive education is a more efficient use of educational resources. 
SOCIAL SENSE  8 Segregation teaches children to be fearful, ignorant and breeds prejudice. 9 All children need an education that will help them develop relationships and prepare them for life in the mainstream. 10 Only inclusion has the potential to reduce fear and to build friendship, respect and understanding. 
All these reasons are now well supported by experiential and even academic evidence. See Inclusive Solutions page on research as a start.
We know it can be hard work, but the job has to be figuring it out, not justifying whether or not to begin or to continue including someone.
We dream just as did Martin Luther King... a dream of inclusion, full inclusion, where the answer to who do we include becomes:
All means means all.
Colin Newton

Inclusive Solutions Home Page

The Inclusive Welcome

Tue, 16 May 2006 16:39:06 +0100

A Little Blog of Welcome

‘Ask us in all the world what is most important?
Tis people, tis people, tis people’
(Old Maori Proverb)
In the beginning was the welcome…
Without welcome you do not properly enter, you are not present so do not participate or perform.
Welcome is the first key to the successful inclusion of anyone
Who needs a good welcome?
Everyone who needs a relationship, needs a welcome. Particular efforts could be made when welcoming parents, carers, pupils and other family members to a situation, which is unfamiliar to them or in which, they are feeling anxious, apprehensive, aggressive or defensive. This is often the case for people invited to meet on school premises (professionals included).
Who has trouble gaining a great welcome?
Well, the UK Audit Commission asked Parent Partnership Officers around the country what families had problems gaining admission to their local schools. This is what they found.
Pupils who had been excluded, those with labels related to behaviour and anyone with autism all had problems with the welcome.
It appears that some children and their families get a much worse welcome than others.

Of course the welcome extended in a whole range of community settings will be different for some of us. Differences in sexuality, race, culture, disability, behaviour and simply physical appearance all dramatically influence how an individual is welcomed.

Symbols of Welcome
If we want to improve the inclusive quality of our welcome we do well to start with the physical symbols and environment in which the welcome takes place. Light, warmth, and soft rather than harsh furnishings all play a part. The waiting area with a settee to sit upon, flowers, and toys and books suitable for a range of differently aged children and young people.
Offers of drinks and even food are clear welcome messages of profound and often cultural importance. How do you welcome someone to your own home?
In larger groups the welcome in situations such as training events, conferences, parents evenings, and other gatherings will benefit from food, drink, sweets, music and colour as they all provide tangible symbols of welcome.
Non-Verbals of Welcome
Smiles, tone of voice, warm words, handshakes, and even hugs are a great form of welcome without words.
The physicality of the welcome depends on your relationship with the person and their cultural and personal preferences and expectations. Keep it respectful.
At other times in larger settings especially, the welcome needs more stage management and can be bigger and more dramatic. Open body position and upturned hands can accompany effusive warm welcomes. This is not a time to hold back or to only pick out certain people for a welcome.
What makes a respectful welcome?

A Sense of Safety and Belonging

Ground rules and structures will help create that essential sense of safety that is crucial to setting the right tone although sometimes even ground rules can be intrusive to this sense of safety. Self-revelations (within reason!) and openness from those welcoming a group or individual of any age can help enormously with this sense of safety and trust in the room.

Providing choices and opt out possibilities for what may be perceived as risky activities can be reassuring for the anxious.

Clarifications, and acknowledgement of real challenges can all help as can humour if used honestly and respectfully.

Lose the Magnifying Glass

In our western culture we have a strong tendency to be very self critical as well as critical of each other. In schools everyone is assessed! We magnify each other’s faults and our own. It starts with physical difference then moves quickly to how people act, behave, what they say and how they say it! We look at ourselves in the mirror, real or imagined and the critical observations begin…look at that nose, how fat are you….and so forth. Then our negative internal drivers get hold. ‘You are not good enough, clever enough, quick enough…’and the old favourite ‘One day, under my great title, my professional front, they are going to find me out…its just little old me and I don’t know much!’

We encourage people to put their magnifying glass aside and try and keep them away the length of the time we are together.

Alternatively a judge’s wig is a useful prop that when dramatically removed is a simple way of reminding each other that it will help if we are not critical of the session leaders, each other or ourselves. In such a safer climate children and adults will try out ideas, play, take risks and learning will be optimised.

Communicating without jargon

We find use of the Jargon Buster or crap detector to be invaluable in all our work. Jack Pearpoint and Marsha Forrest from Inclusion Press, Toronto taught us the power of this prop. This instrument is rattled if anyone in the room uses jargon or over complex sentences which are hard to understand. Our work has improved considerably since direct feedback and rattles have sounded in our ears! We commend it to any review meeting where parents and pupils may be present. Who should hold the buster? We think you know the answer…everyone! Or how about following the lead of the People First movement in the UK who recommend holding up a card with a question mark on it if something is not understood in a meeting.

The buster works really well in all learning situations including adult training and classrooms too! Try it out. The risks may seem high but the outcomes for greater understanding and participation are there to be won.
Rituals and Routines
For many children and young people plus adults the presence of rituals and routines can be empowering and provide a deep sense of security. This is especially important for pupils living in insecure family situations, surviving neglect, abuse or loss. It is just as important for those whose impairments lead to a greater feeling of anxiety than others.
Rituals and routines may simply relate to what happens at the start of a day, start of lessons and other key transition points. From standing behind chairs, queuing in corridors, chanted responses, to prayers. All have their value and place in ordered welcome if this is ‘what we do round here’.

Inclusion and the Welcome
If we can successfully welcome disabled, or challenging children and young people to our schools, if we can set a positive tone, we set the tone for what will follow. Communities, schools and families that truly embrace inclusion are so often the most welcoming to all who participate or visit them. Often the most welcoming settings turn out to be the most inclusive…
Box
Jonathon was joining a new secondary school. He was 13 and carries the label of autism. The welcome for him needed to be thought about very carefully. What was put in place really helped in make a great start at his new school. The elements of welcome for him included:
• Visiting the school while it was empty
• Looking at photos of key staff and pupils he would meet
• Being given a map of the school
• A meeting between his tutor group and Jonathon’s parents was facilitated in which information about Jonathon’s differences, strengths and interests was set up. The pupils were able to ask questions respectfully.
• The school has a progressive model of cooperative grouping pupils by interests and skills rather than ability wherever they can
• Being met by a small welcoming committee of other pupils who knew the school well and who became a supportive circle of friends for his first year at the school meeting weekly
• A support assistant from his previous school was there to meet him for the first 3 weeks at his new school
End Box
Improving the Welcome
There are many ways we can improve the welcome we offer:
1. Spend a day together with your team, group or family reflecting on the quality of the welcome in your setting. Who takes responsibility for welcome? Who is at the front door? What rituals and symbols are present already, which could be added?
2. Consider those who are least likely to be welcomed in your setting. What could be done to improve the welcome for them?
3. What will you do about jargon in your setting?
4. How will you ensure a sense of safety and belonging for all?
5. Turn your own welcome up by 80%, What impact does this have on your life and work?
Make it happen.

Colin Newton
Inclusive Solutions

Inclusive Solutions Home Page
Contact us if you would like more input on this