Since our formation we have worked with numerous Young People referred by Social Care, Children Rights Services, Schools, Connexions, Entry2Employment and Pupil Referral Units, throughout Wiltshire, Bristol, BaNES and North Somerset. This gives an indication of the breadth of personal, social and educational issues and we believe that this allows us a unique insight into both the Young People that we work wit and the varying approaches adopted to support them, as well as the needs of each authority that we work within.
Teaching Team
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James Smurthwaite |
Nicci Bennett |
John Barbour |
Support Team
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Joe Malins |
Rachael Suckling |
Bob Blunden |
Lindsay Green |
Lucy Glover |
Admin - Management Team
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Rachel Tyler - Finance, HR and Admin |
Steve Breakwell - Managing Director |
Since our formation we have gone from strength to strength and have gone from humble beginnings, providing outreach support sessions to now offering a wide variety of services and have now opened our very own centre in Bristol, allowing us to develop the courses we offer and the space to develop as we want. Current plans in development for the centre include the building of a new IT Suite, Design & Technology Room and specific teaching spaces for varying needs. Future plans also include the building of kitchen facilities in order to run catering courses, a dance studio and an audio/video suite.
As well as providing a wide-ranging service to Young People we have also been involved in training Social Workers, Carers and Teachers in a variety of topics including methods of promoting educational achievement and understanding the issues affecting young people looked after in public care.
We hold a strong multiagency approach in the work that we carry out and feel that it is important to assist with the needs of other professionals as well as Young People. By talking with us about what it is that you require we are able to offer a service that is relevant and effective for you.
In 2005 Active Inclusion received the award for ‘Best New Business’ and in 2007 achieved the award for ‘Business of the Year 2007’
Active Inclusion’s Philosophy
We believe that children and young people’s behaviour is a barometer for their emotional health and well being. It tells us about ways in which they have learned to manage emotional discomfort and stress. These include both the difficult feelings such as anger, rage and jealousy and the positive arousals, feelings such as pleasure, excitement and curiosity.
During their time with us Young People will be assessed with the support of the Emotional literacy assessment and intervention produced by Southampton Psychology Service.
The assessment will help us to support encouragement and where appropriate challenge or provide targeted intervention to enhance the social and emotional development and well being of young people. They will help to provide us with a stimulus for ongoing discussion and will help us to pin point which areas of emotional literacy in individuals might receive priority for intervention. To help us act and to foster inclusion not to label; helping us to identify which competences and skills might be a priority area to work on.
As it is the ability to know and label ones own emotions is a crucial foundation for that rest of emotional literacy self awareness is the first area that we work on.
We use techniques that build positive attitudes to learning through our strategies for changing behaviour program.
We believe in strategies that focus on solutions rather than causes to everyday problems that children and young people constantly face and address the underlying factors that can affect Young Peoples lives with the aim of this in turn helping to resolve the surface difficulties that may be expressed.
Our strategies involve techniques used in modern day psychotherapy such as Cognitive Behaviour therapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Gestalt therapy. We are also looking at ways we can incorporate schema therapy.
Included within our support package involves a program dealing with tough issues and tough choices which involves a no nonsense approach using topical scenarios which engage, written in the style of the streets but in a language that is not normally used or allowed in the formal world of education.
The aim is to encourage young people to develop their own voices to take ownership of their behaviours values and responses and to become reflective young adults who are able to effectively identify challenge social injustice and define their own informed opinions on issues that may affect their lives.
The ways in which young people both perceive and experience oppression are many and varied as are the ways they respond both physically and verbally. Through the program we identify challenges and pressures that are threatening their physical and mental well being and clarify their worries, concerns, fears and pressures using a described range of real life scenarios in which these are encapsulated.
Another key aspect of our support package provides a program for children to explore, communicate and learn more about themselves and their relationships, helping children to improve their quality of life by improving their relationships with others. Looking at endlessly repeating destructive relationship patterns, choosing people who are bad for them, staying in deadening relationships or destroying the lovely relationships they do have.
Our experience has shown that young people want adults who:
Understand that the way they treat us in everyday life affects our confidence, our self esteem and our emotional health. We don’t want to be treated like children but don’t expect us to be adults either.
Communicate well with us and listen to what we think and how we feel.
Encourage us to broaden our horizons and try new things.
Ask us what we want and make sure we are involved in decisions that affect us and don’t just ask; action it and involve us in the solutions to problems.
Understand and remember what it felt like to be young and recognize that we are young and we need to learn our own lessons and make our own mistakes.
Don’t put us under too much pressure, but also have high expectations for us.
The Active Inclusion Team
Staff receive ongoing training to help children to learn how to recognize, regulate, communicate and express their emotions. Our staff act as role models, the ways in which they act and react to children demonstrate to children and young people how to manage and how to be. Staff are experienced youth workers and qualified teachers with experience of working with children with special educational needs. They are supported by a senior management team which is responsible for ongoing supervision and training. With our ongoing training program we support our staff so that they are able to recognize, manage and contain their own emotional states so that they can show in the detail of their relationships with the young people just what emotional literacy looks like.
As well as being proactive and professional in our approach we also take the safety of the Young People in our care very seriously and all staff members are vetted and hold Enhanced CRB checks, including any support members of the team such as our office staff.
Staff also receive fortnightly training, covering topics such as Social & Emotional Development, Managing Aggression, First Aid Training and Child Protection to name but a few. We also recognise that each member of the team has an area of expertise and so we encourage the sharing of knowledge within our team meetings and team members frequently offer specific training drawing from their skills base. Staff members also receive regular formal supervision from senior managers, as well as monthly peer supervision sessions which help to identify support strategies and share and co-ordinate best practice. Staff members also receive annual appraisals and external training in order for them to develop their careers further and develop the services that we are able to offer.
For all new staff we have a comprehensive Induction Pack which outlines our philosophy, working methods and policies, as well as containing a wealth of information regarding direct working, child protection procedures and training videos and thanks to the support structures that we have in place we are proud to hold the ‘Employer of Excellence’ Accreditation to our name.
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