Behaviour is a way of communicating, which can sometimes feel rather uncomfortable when on the receiving end!

Our job as teachers is to enable our children to communicate in safe and effective ways.’ John Fardon, Northamptonshire Shoebox March 2009, ‘If behaviour is seen as an expression of emotion rather than defiance against authority then one can begin to address the behaviour from a position of empathy and resolve situations more usefully.’ Mental Health is Everybody’s Business – a Handbook for Schools, Northamptonshire Children & Young People’s Partnership 2007.

In March 2009, The Northamptonshire Shoebox was launched to help schools include pupils where there are concerns about their social, emotional, behavioural or mental health. When working as a Mental Health Teacher in Northamptonshire schools, the presenting problem is almost always a concern about behaviour; however the solution is almost always broader than this. The Northamptonshire Shoebox is available to all professionals working with children in Northamptonshire schools in the form of a 140 page folder. It is also available online at www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/shoebox

Behaviour is one of the strands addressed in The Northamptonshire Shoebox, along with 5 other key strands: feelings, thinking, social, physiological and happiness. These form a multi-faceted grid for us to consider the needs of a child or young person.

I suggested using a method called Drawing and Talking, for which I had recently received training. I saw him for 12 half-hour sessions and he drew pictures; I watched and asked a few simple questions about the pictures.

On one occasion he sat with his head on his hands for 25 minutes until I told him there were five minutes to go and then he started to draw. Further creative work was carried out in the afternoons with a teaching assistant. 

Recent feedback from the Head Teacher informed me that this pupil left Year 6 with excellent SAT results, had integrated fully into the class and was now at secondary school. His behaviour at that time was his form of communication about the difficulties there were at home. He was able to use the opportunity given by Drawing & Talking and other creative activities to resolve these issues in his mind, and become more ready to make use of his learning opportunities in school.

Case example 2 – A 14 year old girl who was running out of classes and telling her teachers to £%**& off: She would explode for no apparent reason, full of verbal expletives. The presenting problem was this behaviour, with a possible result being exclusion from school. The solution was found by addressing her emotions, identifying and labelling feelings, helping her to use positive thinking and to identify her strengths. This was done using a number of interventions, found in The Northamptonshire Shoebox. These were based on the framework of Protective Behaviours, which enabled her to identify when she felt safe, how her body felt when not feeling safe and to develop strategies she could put into action when she didn’t feel safe.

Other approaches which I have found very helpful in working with individuals and with classes include Solution Focused Approaches – especially the use of language and scaling techniques, which helps to find solutions rather than spending hours talking about the problem. FRIENDS for Life is a programme provided through the Educational Psychology Service in Northamptonshire. This is based in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and fits very well with Protective Behaviours. Miss Dorothy (Dot) is another brilliantly constructed idea based on Protective Behaviours, built around characters in a story, with work books and internet material that enables children to email Dot with their problems.

One might ask how this all fits together in a Shoebox and whether it benefits all children. You can make up your own minds, for the idea of a shoebox is that you can add your

own favourite materials and create your own treasury of valuable items to support and teach children positive and helpful behaviour. Northamptonshire is part of the government’s Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS) Project and several models and approaches are being implemented. So far, our TaMHS  schools have received training in Drawing & Talking, FRIENDS, The Solihull Approach, Relax Kids and Zippy’s Friends, to name but a few. Teachers and school support staff are becoming more skilled and confident in supporting pupils develop emotional well-being and psychological health, as well as more able to recognise their own needs for emotional health.

If you find something you think others would find useful, go onto the website and let us know www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/shoebox

John Fardon Specialist Teacher, Mental Health, Northamptonshire Children & Young People’s Service.