Intro:
Welcome to the NSPCC Learning podcast, where we share learning and expertise in child protection from inside and outside of the organisation. We aim to create debate, encourage reflection and share good practice on how we can all work together to keep babies, children and young people safe.
Jennifer Dixon:
Hello and welcome to this NSPCC Learning podcast on emotional resilience. My name is Jennifer Dixon and I'm the team manager in the Scotland Hub. I'm going to introduce two of my colleagues who are joining me today, Jo and Prajapa.
Jo Grace:
My name is Jo Grace and I'm a children's services practitioner with the NSPCC coming up almost 15 years.
Prajapa Seneviratne:
Hello, I'm Prajapa Seneviratne and I'm the Research and Evaluation Officer at the NSPCC in Scotland.
Jennifer:
Thank you both for joining me today. I'm going to facilitate some of the questions and ask you both to talk about one of the projects we all worked on in Govan, but also to talk a bit more about emotional resilience itself. So first of all, Jo, to you, can you tell me a bit about what is emotional resilience to start with?
Jo:
So I think probably the easiest way to start is almost by giving a definition of what emotional resilience is. The main one that we used originated from the Harvard Centre for the Developing Child and they define resilience as having the right support to cope, adapt and thrive in spite of adverse life experiences. It's key for managing stress, navigating transitions and change, and maintaining healthy mental wellbeing.
Why is emotional resilience important? It's a massive life skill. It's something that we have to learn. So our parents will often be our first teachers as models of emotional resilience and emotional intelligence. Positive experiences, along with learning self care practices and building trusting relationships for children, act as protective factors that help build strength and the ability to cope.
So whilst it's important to start developing emotional resilience from early childhood, resilience is an evolving process and it continues to develop throughout our lives. It's finding the mental and the emotional strength, and the support from others around you, to be able to pick yourself up and keep going and cope in the face of whatever the adversity is.
Jennifer:
Do you think you could tell me a bit about the emotional resilience programme in Govan that we developed?
Jo:
Sure, so the actual emotional resilience programme came about as a result of the consequences of the COVID pandemic. When we returned to being in work, loosely in 2021 and then into 2022, there were seven primary schools in Govan - and we had really good connections with them anyway prior to COVID - so a lot of them contacted us to let us know that transition back to in-person education after the COVID pandemic was really significantly impacting the children.
Their emotional and social connections had been massively impacted by the lockdown and actually many of the children were carrying grief and loss that were unsupported, whether that was through direct bereavement of family members both locally or around the world. But also huge losses in terms of socialising and friendships and activities and the things that they did during, you know, after school and all those kind of things, because everything had stopped.
The schools felt that the children needed a safe space and some conversations to learn how to manage their feelings in order to be able to focus on their learning. So, the schools asked us if there was anything that we could do to try and support that. As a team, we all worked together in consultation and in co-creation with the schools to develop the emotional resilience programme.
The aim of the programme was to build resilience in the children through developing their emotional awareness, their emotional language, their emotional intelligence. So this included things like being able to recognise and name their feelings, developing empathy towards others, to know the importance of being able to identify a trusted, safe, caring, nurturing adult that they would be able to reach out to and ask for help; but also to know how to take care of themselves and their own mental health, as well as that of their friends and being supportive to their friends.
We developed this five-week programme. The sessions were 60 minutes in duration that we ran over five weeks. It was facilitated by two workers in each group alongside the class teacher. We held planning meetings before the sessions in order to make sure that we understood what the needs of the children in the classroom were. And we held post-planning debriefs with the teaching staff in order to review and assess how the programme had gone and the benefits that the teachers were seeing or hearing from the children. Ultimately by 2024, we had delivered the programme to just under 800 children in the Govan area, which was quite incredible.
Jennifer:
Thank you, Jo. Next question will be, and I'm gonna ask both of you this question. So, Jo, from a practice point of view, Prajapa, from the evaluation point of view, what were the benefits of the programme?
Jo:
Schools really welcomed the emotional facility programme as a really valuable opportunity to connect with and support the children in a different way in their classrooms. An awful lot of the teachers had said that they felt a little bit de-skilled in knowing how to manage when you're dealing with the behaviours of 30 or 33 children in the class who all have different needs. The teachers were struggling how to know to meet all those needs consistently. So by bringing the programme into the class and really keeping the teachers as a core part of that, that really upskilled the teachers in their abilities to connect with the children.
Alongside that, the teachers told us that many of the children had faced significant challenges, not just the bereavement that I mentioned earlier, but there were other things like developmental delays, adjusting to being back in the school environment or new environments. Govan is an incredibly diverse community, so there are lots and lots of different languages and cultures. In one of the schools that we worked in, they had children speaking 34 different languages. So there was some real significant challenges for the teaching staff to be able to understand and meet the needs of this really wide ranging group of children. And the programme was able to meet those needs, not just for the schools, but then also for the children.
The feedback that we got from the children was really powerful in terms of - we would do a safety plan at the end of the programme and we would say to them can you name for us, can you make a short list of the safe, trusted, nurturing adults that you know that you can approach? And actually time and time again the names of the NSPCC staff came up with the children because they'd recognised that we were a safe space but also within the school we created a wider safe space and they knew that lots of the teachers were involved in emotional resilience and they could go to their teachers or their wider community for support.
Jennifer:
So on question two, Prajapa, from an evaluation point of view, what were the benefits of the programme?
Prajapa:
Yes, so in 2024, the NSPCC research team evaluated the emotional resilience programme. I must say it was a real privilege to understand more about the programme through conversations with school staff, the NSPCC staff who had helped design and deliver the programme, and teachers in the schools where the programme was rolled out.
Most importantly, we spoke to the children who participated. Through the evaluation, we found that the emotional resilience programme has clear benefits for children and the schools. The children told us that they had learned how to identify different feelings and were able to recognise the emotions of others and to show compassion and be kind to each other. Many children had learned and practised self-care techniques to manage their emotions, such as deep breathing and taking time out when they needed to. And some children had even shared these techniques with members of their families and they were practising this at home.
The evaluation also found that improving children's awareness of emotional resilience within a supportive school environment can give the children the confidence and the feelings of safety and comfort that they need to be able to learn and achieve, to be able to concentrate on their learning.
We also heard how the programme was helping children who were quite anxious, had been through trauma themselves, and were communicating this through their behaviour in different ways; how the activities and discussions in the programmes helped these children feel settled and positive and happy. Teachers told the evaluation that by being involved in the programme, they felt more confident teaching children about complex emotions.
Evaluation findings also showed that teachers were connecting better with pupils and had a better understanding of their lives and some of the challenges that they were facing on a daily basis. This helped teachers to better support the children and respond promptly if there were any safeguarding concerns.
The findings also showed overall that there is a need for emotional resilience programmes in primary schools and early childcare settings in Govan. As Jo was mentioning, they began delivering the programme to the upper years in primary school and then soon realised, because of what teachers were telling them, that the need was further downstream for younger children too. The programme evaluated that it was needed more widely across Scotland as the benefits of the programme align with the health and wellbeing goals of the curriculum for excellence in Scotland.
Jennifer:
Thanks, Pajapa. Thinking about the adversity that some of the children have faced, Jo, could you tell me about how you felt the programme related to safeguarding when you were in the schools?
Jo:
So obviously whilst we were delivering the programme, we observed that holding safe and honest discussions about emotions helped to strengthen the teacher and the children's relationships with each other, which then encouraged a supportive and trusting relationship throughout the school day where children felt able to be open and honest about things they were struggling with.
That also included talking about things that were difficult at home, sometimes that perhaps children hadn't shared. At the start of each session with the children, we used to hand them out a worksheet and it had a picture of a body on it. And we would ask the children, using emojis, to draw us faces of how they were feeling today, but also to show us where they were feeling that in their bodies, because often our brain-body connection can be a bit disrupted and we're not always good at recognising where we're feeling things in our body. We can have the thoughts in our heads, but not recognise that the washing machine feeling that we've got going on in our tummy is part of what we're thinking about. So we were helping the children to understand that.
We would do these worksheets with the children about how they were feeling, and that was fascinating because actually one that we got really regularly was, "I'm hungry". And that was one that we had to be incredibly aware, but also sensitive, about. And that was doing things like trying to figure out whether the family were, for example, living in poverty and this was a family who were in hardship and it wasn't a safeguarding concern. It was much more about ensuring that the family had the signposts and the support from other organisations to be able to access food support or financial support, making sure their income was maximised, et cetera, et cetera. So we had to tread carefully with the children, trying to figure out whether this was hunger as a result of, there was no food in the house because the family was struggling with poverty, or whether this was a child who was hungry because there was actually something neglectful going on and they weren't maybe being cared for in the way that they should have.
And we would do that very much hand in hand with teachers. So if we identified anything worrying within the class, we would immediately talk with the teacher about it, and then the school and ourselves were able to gently explore that a wee bit further. Sometimes the school had context and could explain that they knew what was happening with a family and the struggles that they were having.
There was also some other ones that might not necessarily be considered safeguarding in the, kind of, child protection type safeguarding stance, but were definitely about looking after and safeguarding the wellbeing of children. I mentioned earlier that we used to have planning meetings with the school before we did the group. In one of the schools that we went into, we had a class of children where there was quite a number of neurodiverse children, but there was one child in particular who had experienced significant adversity in their background, and as a result of that trauma, found it really, really difficult to sit still in the classroom. So what the class teacher had done was created a path on the outskirts of the class that this child could basically patrol the room.
So when they became upset, when they started to have hyper-vigilant symptoms, instead of the teacher telling a child to constantly sit down because they wouldn't be able to sit at their seat and concentrate, all of the children, as part of the emotional resilience programme, understood that this young person needed to just get up and move because that's what made them feel them safe, being able to kind of patrol the class. What was so lovely about it was everybody just accepted it. This child was never made fun of. There was never any ridicule or joking or anything like that. Everybody just understood that this was something that this child needed to do, and then when they were ready, they would be able to come and sit back down again and join back into the class.
Now that may not be seen as a traditional kind of safeguarding issue, but it actually, in a trauma-informed way, was incredible to safeguard the wellbeing and the mental health of this child because they felt safe in their classroom whilst they were hypervigilant — being able to patrol — and felt that they were looking out for the wellbeing of everybody and then when they were comfortable and safe enough and sat down again, that meant that their mental health had stabilised for that moment. So we dealt with a wide range of different kinds of safeguarding experiences.
Jennifer:
Thanks, Jo. That sounds like quite a lot of things that worked well when we were doing the programme. Prajapa, have you got any other insights into what made the programme work?
Prajapa:
Jo has covered a lot of what we heard as being benefits of the programme and what made it work. We heard very similar things during the evaluation of the programme as well. But firstly, I think what made the programme so popular among the children was that it was fun and enjoyable. And as Jo was saying, the programme was iterative. That is by listening to what was working, by listening to the teachers and the children and the needs of the classroom, the programme was able to adapt, and it did adapt to meet the needs of the children, and that was also something that made the programme so live and so effective.
Some of it was adapting the resources, some of it was to do with adapting the time that was needed, because some of those activities I think the children took longer. Even in our evaluation session, we realised that the plan we had before we visited the classroom, was a plan that we could not follow to a T because it took time. Children engaged with it in different ways and we needed just to be flexible right through it and be responsive, listening and engaging in a way that suited the children, in a way that they were able to take on board and understand and make use of.
And I think it was similar with the programme as well, when they were delivering it. We had prepared sheets of lesson plans, but, when it was time for delivery, you had to read the room, you had take on board whether it was just soon after PE or soon after lunch and there was a lot of energy in the room, or it was time to go home and therefore children were already packing their bags.
So you needed to take all of that into account and you really do appreciate so much what the environment does for children and their ability to absorb new learning, participate in activities, et cetera, and what teachers have to do to adapt and how flexible they need to be every day of a school week.
Jennifer:
I think I can add to that as well, Prajapa. Some of the practical things we did for adaptations were - Jo mentioned the school before that had children speaking 34 languages - we would email the sheets to teachers in advance so they could upload to the tablets they were using. The tablets had translation tools on them so that meant they could be interpreted for the children in their language, so that made it more accessible for them.
We had a couple of children who had visual impairments, so we created larger text versions and the teacher would tell us what size that child could read at, and we adapted it all and then sent that across. So it wasn't an extra task on the teacher when we were actually in the schools, we did all that part for them. Those planning meetings that we had would always help because we would ask if there was any requirements like that before we'd started the programme, and it gave us time to prepare and make sure that all those children could feel included.
One other thing that made it work was the resources that delivered the programme. So we had the class teacher and two NSPCC staff members facilitating and delivering the sessions, and that facilitated really safe conversations with children. Nobody was left out. There was a staff [member] and teacher around to support any child who needed to have a conversation during any of the activities that were run. So the consistency of that team of facilitators was also something that was really valuable within the programme design.
Another key feature that made the programme work is that it was delivered by individuals who are trained and confident in managing difficult conversations and safeguarding concerns. So anyone that delivers this type of programme must respond to safeguarding disclosures in a trauma-informed way. They need to have robust safeguarding procedures in place or be supported by the NSPCC to develop them.
Jennifer:
So Prajapa, you mentioned there about being trauma-informed. Jo, do you think you could tell me more about how practitioners can be trauma-informed when delivering emotional resilience work?
Jo:
I think that's an essential skill in any kind of work that we do, but particularly when working with children, because we hear children share really difficult feelings; and on some occasions there were significant safeguarding disclosures that were shared as well.
So whoever delivers the programme needs to have had some training to be able to identify and manage safeguarding concerns, but also to have had some training in trauma-informed approaches or to be trauma-sensitive; to understand how to be with a child in their feelings, that it's not just about finding solutions, but actually it can be sitting with those difficult words, difficult feelings that children are sharing and not having any judgement around any of that, but allowing children the space to actually feel safe with that adult and to feel listened to and heard.
I think both those skills go hand-in-hand, both in terms of safeguarding and in any kind of trauma-informed approach. I think it's really essential that organisations ensure that any staff that would be in place facilitating a programme like this would have also things like good supervision and also good wellbeing pathways, because sometimes you are dealing with difficult subject matters. So it's important to make sure that staff are well looked after and well-trained and are able to deliver the programme consistently, but in a team, not just as individuals like we said at the beginning.
We always did this with two staff plus a teacher to ensure that there was enough people around so that if anything did arise, there was still people there while someone could step out and deal with whatever the difficulty was. I think making sure that it's in the right hands of the people that understand empathy and being able to hold those feelings and understanding what talking about feelings may result in, which can result in disclosures or big feelings that are hard to manage, then that's a really positive approach as well. A really essential approach.
Jennifer:
We've talked a lot about the positives of the programme. Prajapa, could you tell me a bit more about what the challenges were around delivering the emotional resilience programme?
Prajapa:
Yes I can, Jen, and I think rather than challenges, I would frame it as learning because there was so much learning for the NSPCC during the planning and also the delivery of the programme, as we heard through the evaluation. I'll briefly run through some of the key learnings.
So firstly, it took time for children to feel comfortable with NSPCC staff. They were external presenters and the programme required a trusting relationship so that the children were able to share their feelings and really engage in the activities. Time was key and time was not always afforded to us because we had to fit it all within one classroom time slot within the day.
Secondly, we learned that, because we were delivering it to so many different age groups, a greater variety of delivery methods were needed and it was recommended that sessions included puppets, slides, short videos and pictures to keep the children engaged throughout the one-hour session. We learned that some of the resources within the programme had already been introduced to the children through other programmes and events. And this showed us the importance of really understanding what programmes exist currently in schools so that we are fully aware of this when introducing any programme or resource kit.
The evaluation also learned that schools were facing quite a lot of challenges every day with resources and pressures on staff capacity. So we need to bear this in mind when scaling up a programme of this nature. This is where the emotional resilience resource pack comes in, as it gives schools and teachers a toolkit to dip in and out of and build into their lesson plans as and when needed.
Jennifer:
Thanks Prajapa. So, following the success of the programme Jo, largely you in our team, created the facilitator's guide.
As Prajapa's mentioned, there's other programmes out there as well. What advice would you give to someone who wants to run and implement their own emotional resilience programme with young people?
Jo:
I think the first thing would be absolutely it needs to be done in partnership with the schools or— actually, as Prajapa had mentioned about going downstream, we started with the older years and then the younger years within the schools.
We ultimately ended up developing emotional resilience for nurseries in the early years as well because the need was there at that very, very early stage and if we can start children's emotional resilience and recognising their big feelings, you know, from age three onwards, that's an amazing step towards building their resilience as they grow into adulthood. So working in partnership, I think, is key.
Co-creation is also key. Have the feedback from parents, from staff, from children, from anybody that's involved in it. Take that learning and again, like Prajapa mentioned, it's iterative, it's a moving process. You don't just write it and then get stuck on it. You have to learn and adapt as things change. We eventually found a couple of storybooks that worked really well. We found a game, Buckaroo, which was a wonderful example of getting overloaded with your feelings when the donkey bucked. And so there was some fun, real fun activities built into it. So again, make your programme fun, keep it quite short and quite light. You want the children to want to come back for more.
And I suppose the biggest key thing, going back to that previous question we just discussed, is about the relationships. It's about the relationships with whoever's facilitating. It's about the relationships with the school staff, their teachers, their nursery educators, whoever it might be, building that safe, trusted, nurturing relationship where children feel safe enough to test out and talk about their big feelings and to share how they're feeling or the things they're struggling with so that they can learn from that.
I think the one other thing that I would add is about always ensuring that the parents are part of it. We used to send information home to parents to let them know what we were doing, what activities the children were taking part in and what the aim of the programme was that we were doing with the children. They would often go home and tell their parents stories about it.
One of the key features of the programme was mindfulness and the children really loved the active mindfulness exercises that we did. So we taught them things like finger breathing and superhero breathing. One their favourites was bumblebee breathing and we were shared a story by a parent about how they were now using that at bedtime, as part of the routine. Because their child found it really, really soothing.
And actually the parent was quite comforted by it as well, that they would breathe together and hum and make this kind of buzzing sound together, and they would lie there laughing on the bed after they'd done it. So just make sure parents are a core part of it as well.
Jennifer:
So from our conversation today, what I'm getting is that we would highly recommend that schools prioritise emotional resilience within their settings, as well as other groups if they can. We've mentioned our facilitator guide, which is just one of the number of different tools available for people.
One of the big things that has come across from both you and Prajapa speaking is the importance of being responsive to children and listening, active real listening to children. And making it fun. So they want to come and speak to you and build that trust. But I think we're also just very aware of the capacity constraints for teachers and just quite how much they're balancing within the classroom and how many children's needs that they have to meet all at one time, and it's a very hard job.
I think what we learned overall is that actually supporting emotional resilience in children is a collective effort; so that could be your local Scout groups, your Rainbows groups as well, you know, bringing in these topics in loads of different arenas. Just places where children have adults they can lean on that feel trusted and safe, and that they can create this sense of connection and safety with.
Thank you for both answering all my questions and speaking with me today.
Jo:
Thank you.
Prajapa:
Thank you! If anyone would like to read our evaluation report on our emotional resilience programme, you can find the link in the show notes attached to this podcast, or on our NSPCC Learning website.
Outro:
Thanks for listening to this NSPCC Learning podcast. At the time of recording, this episode’s content was up to date but the world of safeguarding and child protection is ever changing – so, if you're looking for the most current safeguarding and child protection training, information or resources, please visit our website for professionals at nspcc.org.uk/learning.
