Distressed not 'difficult'—supporting distressed behaviour in children

Key learning

Exploring our thoughts and beliefs about behaviour

• Identifying patterns of behaviour and how they meet a child's needs
• Understanding the interconnected brain, moving from co-regulation to self-regulation
• Interpreting behaviours, and what this tells us about a child’s internal state
• Using the internal state and developmental stage of a child to inform our responses

This training is aimed at those working with children who work with children who display 'challenging' behaviour.

Background

How we view and respond to a child’s behaviour has changed over time. Traditional approaches, that are still being used today, are reactive and have many limitations. If we really want to minimise the reoccurrence of distressed behaviour and bring about long-term change for our children and young people, we need to understand what is going on in their bodies and brains. We also need to be aware of the impact of environmental factors surrounding the child and how we can stay connected when relationships are being pushed to the limit.

This session translates recent findings in neuroscience into practical approaches that help the adult to make sense of behaviour and respond in a considered way. It explores how we can be proactive, making small changes to daily routines that will equip children with the skills they need to meet the demands of everyday life.

Facilitator

Nicola McAllister is a trainer and consultant who specialises in Child Development and Behaviour. She has over 25 years’ experience working with some of our most vulnerable children and young people while providing training, consulting and coaching services to those adults who support them.

Nicola’s background is in Education. She has worked within mainstream settings as well as specialist provisions for children experiencing social, emotional, and behavioural needs. Her training and consultancy work has branched across several sectors including early years, fostering and adoption teams, community groups and supporting parents and carers at home.

Using neuroscience informed approaches, she supports adults to create environments that will soothe stress responses within the child, reconnect safe and secure relationships and develop self-regulation for long term success.

Member Tickets

We are delighted to now offer our Members a discount across all Children in Scotland trainings.

This training will be priced at £40 for Members and £55 for non-members.

To access the member price, please input your promo code when booking via the ‘insert promo code’ function. If you are unsure whether your organisation are members, please check the list below. If your organisation does appear on the list of members below but you do not know your promo code, please ask your organisation or drop us an email.

Organisations, click here to see current members.

Become a member of Children in Scotland

Children in Scotland is the largest national membership organisation for the children’s sector in the country. To access discounted trainings and many other membership benefits including exclusive content and resources, and discounted commissioned training, please visit here.

Local authorities in membership with Children in Scotland

Please note that all local authority staff working from both headquarter and regional offices including senior management are included in membership and can register as members for discounted training with Children in Scotland. Membership does not extend to schools and nurseries within individual local authorities. If you are interested in your school or nursery becoming a member, please visit here.

Members are responsible for applying their discount at the time of purchasing a ticket, discounts cannot be applied after the ticket has been purchased. Please click here for instructions if you are unsure how to redeem your member discount.

System requirements for attendees

This training will be delivered using Zoom. You can attend from anywhere using a compatible computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone connected to the internet.

Please note, some organisations have additional security settings that may prevent you from accessing Zoom on a work device.

Please check that your organisation permits access to Zoom. If they don’t provide access, we encourage you to use a personal device with Google Chrome instead. Otherwise, please speak to your IT team to gain access or ask them to change the security settings on your work device to access Zoom.

Closed Captioning and Live Transcription

Zoom enables Close Captioning and Live Transcription. Once you have joined the Zoom, you can access this by:

1. Click the “CC Live Transcript” button
2. Click one of the following:

• Show Subtitles – Displays captioning on the bottom of the video. You can also select Hide Subtitle once subtitles are selected to hide them.
• View Full Transcript – Opens a panel/pop-up and displays captions in real-time with both the speaker’s name and time stamp.

Accessibility

The Children in Scotland Learning & Events team are committed to doing all we can to ensure our learning opportunities are accessible to everyone. If you require any adjustments to assist your learning, whether they be in relation to course materials or delivery format, please do contact us at events@childreninscotland.org.uk to discuss.

Cancellation Policy

As a charity, Children in Scotland must cover the running costs of delivering events. We are therefore not in a position to offer refunds except under extenuating circumstances, in which case an administration fee would be applied.

Copyright and data sharing

Recording and/or distributing the training in any form is prohibited. This training may be recorded for internal review and use.

Please note that your personal details may be shared with the trainer for training purposes. These details will be deleted once the training has taken place.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email events@childreninscotland.org.uk.