Victorian Legal Aid (VLA) recently released a report titled Care Not Custody: A new approach to keep kids in residential care out of the criminal justice system. In reviewing this report my aim was not to say ‘Kafkaesque’ or ‘Catch 22’ or make any reference to the TV shows ‘Yes Minister’ (for you older Practitioners) or ‘Utopia’ (for younger Practitioners).…
Self-harming is common amongst young people in OoHC, youth justice and alternative school settings. As noted in my last post, I just love a succinct summary of the evidence of the causes and treatment of mental health issues. Today’s post provides such a summary on the causes and interventions for self-harm. This YouTube video, called Self Injury Knowledge and Skills…
Day 2: International Child Trauma Conference 2018 Yesterday I attended Peter Fongy’s masterclass on Mentalisation Based Therapy (MBT) Who is Peter Fonagy? Peter is a psychologist with special interests in the neurobiology of attachment, working with violent young men and people with personality disorders. He has authored over 300 peer reviewed articles. You can read a short version of…
Verbal aggression by clients to staff in residential care, YJ and alternative schools is a continuing problem for Practitioners. This study looks at the specific impact of verbal aggression on mental health nurses. It investigates the following hypothesis: Why are nursing staff studies relevant to OoHC/YJ/alternative schools? In general, the quality of research in the mental health sector…
The Victorian Ombudsman (VO) report[1] into school expulsions ignores the elephant in the room, namely whether violence is increasing in our schools and, if so, is it the cause of an increase in expulsions. Background to the report The VO report has narrow Terms of Reference (TOR), namely to audit the Dept. of Education and Training’s (DET) compliance to the…
Practitioners become concerned when their staff, typically new staff, become too close to the young people (YP) in their care. Staff themselves believe, correctly, that a close relationship is necessary to bring about changes in the YP’s life. However, the relationship can transform into a ‘peer-to-peer’ relationship, i.e. both parties are ‘equal’ in the relationship and thus the worker is…
Numerous enquiries into residential care[i] have recommended raising education qualifications of resi-workers to improve both the quality of care and outcomes for young people. However, a recent US study implies that this strategy may not be wholly successful. The researchers asked staff how they learnt the skills necessary to be an effective resi-worker. Unsurprisingly, most reported that they believed that…
This week’s blog continues the focus on influential child psychiatrist, Michael Rutter – this time his work on resilience. The last blog post defined ‘resilience’ and identified the underlying factors that give rise to resilience. Today, we will investigate how resilience might develop – especially in young people in OoHC and YJ settings. Firstly, Rutter notes that the research findings…
The trauma attachment model, as articulated by the Sanctuary Model or Bruce Perry etc, is the dominant treatment model or paradigm for residential care in Australia. This 2017 study from the USA serves as a reminder that there is an alternative paradigm, namely the Teaching Family Model (TFM). (See YouTube presentation on TFM here.) TFM is based on the…
Arianne Struik is a clinical psychologist who works with traumatised Indigenous children in remote parts of Australia on a fly in/fly out(FIFO) basis. She presented a paper entitled Treating Chronically Traumatized Children: Don’t let sleeping dogs lie at the Australian Psychology Society (APS) Conference last year. The APS has released a video of her presentation at the cost of only…