Over the last few years we have been having many conversations with family members who say they never receive support with their child or relative's behaviour.
For a long time we debated how to achieve supporting family around their person. I grew up with disabilities as part of my family life and therefore am quite close to the fundamental idea that we are in a great positions to assist others.
I worked with one particular mother around her teen, she did the 3 day course then we did a 2 day workshop that was bespoke to her son, this involved specific consultancy and designing things I had never in the past taught. In the room for these 2 days were people from the school, the social worker, the respite service and both parents. The workshop consolidated everyone into a consistent confident group.
From that the staff then went on to receive the full 3 day BILD Accredited training. However with the parents I also spent a couple of days in their home one weekend 6 months later to assist with a predictably difficult holiday weekend. It was at this point that the conversations on how to assist parents developed.
I have attempted to lay on training for parents in the past even at a seriously reduced rate and sometimes free. I mainly get calls from people who are unable to attend for whatever reason or seem to get more from the phone call discussing the behaviour of their child than actually want to come to a workshop to look at practical solutions.
So I have teamed up with the mother mentioned - Dr Christianne Pollock to run seminars and workshops specifically bespoke around the participant's needs. This had a pilot run in Bristol that was incredibly well received. We ran 2 days and covered the exact things the participants wanted. One mother in particular, who was one of the people who said they had been on CB courses and nothing helped, said this was the first time she had met people with similar issues and the first time she had been given proper practical solutions.
All of the feedback and testimonials can be found on this page which also leads to this site
D.ESCAL8™ Open Workshops
Challenging Behaviour is a term the healthcare sector has misused for years. When the term was originally introduced, it was an attempt to move away from the then widely used term "behaviourally disturbed". The healthcare sector recognised that the term had become associated with some very negative connotations and therefore should not, in good conscience, be given to an individual.
Learn More
A service director the other day commented how it was only on Physical Intervention training that the staff start questioning to the Nth degree about scenarios and possible outcomes of events. She stated that it would not happen on a first aid course. Well I know a first aid trainer who would disagree, however I have been on a lot of training as a participant in the last year (see biog) and can agree her point is valid.
Learn More
From Inception D8 was formed as a method of getting high quality training to those who care for individuals in distress. Part of that concept involves smaller companies and individuals who find accessing training prohibitive for various reasons. Apart from the obvious cost implications with running a full training course there are also the implications regarding closing a business to release staff for the course to occur.
Learn More
When under pressure we respond in a small number of differing ways. These tend to be in 2 main camps. Those who feel the need to control and those who have a more relaxed attitude. The question is which has a better effect on the person in distress? Picture this, you are under pressure and in distress and you shout at your partner "just get me my dinner!" and your partner replies "No, you will not talk to me in that manner! ENOUGH now."
Learn More
Over the last few years we have had a terrific response in terms of de-escalation with our course incorporating Affect Labelling. Emotions arise to make us pay attention to our environment. The more emotional our experience, the less we can think clearly, resist impulses, and engage in constructive problem-solving. By creating even the simplest label, we learn to express what we are experiencing. At a rudimentary level, we think about what is causing us to feel emotion and take action to experience either more or less of the emotion, depending on the situation.
Learn More
The mind shift almost always travels from introductions where people say / imply things that contradict the basic philosophy of the course to an ending where people state publicly (or privately to me) how they always thought like this. Usually adding something like - “it is great that a training like this exists so that all those other people I work with whose attitude needs adjusting can access it”.
Learn More
What would you do? This seems to be an innocent question with a straight forward answer. However, when asked by someone who works in healthcare industry, assumptions take over and most people are convinced they know exactly what that entails – lets look at the options
Learn More
The term debriefing is an industry-used term. In our industry while useful it is often misunderstood when talking about application at ground floor or grassroots level. When discussing the term de-briefing we @de-escalate.com have separated the term debriefing into different areas. I will discuss one of these here.
Learn More
If there is any indication or suspicion that anyone has suffered an injury or psychological trauma following the incident / use of physical intervention they must receive treatment and support as soon as is reasonably possible. Debriefing is misused as a term, and while analysis is important in a Positive Behaviour Support framework, your D.ESCAL8™ facilitator discussed these two areas and the differences between debriefing and offloading.
Learn More
Teaching different groups can lead to predictable responses. When you teach a group where half the participants work with younger kids (under 11 ish) and the other half work with young people (teens) there is a clear dichotomy in their attitudes and responses around problem behaviour. It all comes back to the issue around the distractor versus the reinforcer.
Learn More
I have wanted to do a post about Hanlon's Razor for a while and the mask issue has led to me combining that here. Our non verbal communication being misinterpreted or misunderstood should not be considered intentional.
Learn More
This is a series of images sent to me by the area boss. It's not merely about the evaluations people provide at the end. It’s about the deeper consolidation achieved through meaningful conversations within the team. These conversations foster understanding, collaboration, and alignment, which are far more impactful than numerical scores or rankings. The true value lies in engaging dialogue that strengthens bonds and resolves challenges. Success stems from shared insights and collective growth within the team. Conversations truly matter in building trust and unity.
Learn More
