Does anyone have any resources or signposting for staff who support young adults with LD and behaviours of concern?
We follow a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) strategy with all our service users, but I am struggling to find relevant support for my staff who are involved in serious incidents and long term implications this may have for their health.
Any advice would be greatfully received.
May I ask what the predicative meaning of your term 'relevant' IS to the concept of 'staff' needing inferentially needing long term risk mitigation?
The therapy for your clients is clearly set in context as you described. However, your question for the 'staff' is far too broad to properly signal any modality of academic or applied learning in a formal modality.
Thank you
Thanks for your response. I should have been more clear. I am looking for some type of emotional support for staff who have experienced their involvement or witnessed potentially traumatic events concerning service users. Personal therapy for example, but this can be expensive.
Yes, I did see the sense of your meaning, whereas, not the NOW stated emotional dial of the support in terms of the experiences described.
The reason why that distinction needs to be made is because emotional support can be rather without direction in the same way that music (your avatar you understand) can be understood as an auditory stimuli where the emotional direction is intentionally framed to direct behavioural self awareness. What MAY be missing in music therapy is the pythagorean scales meaning in the auditory (inner ear) sensory meaning, speaking back to learning rules of music with a meaning that extends beyond simple hearing. I saw this being taught in a hospital over four decades ago to introduce the same behavioural precept with LD patients on ward - as music therapy.
In YOUR sense of a 'staff' meaning, then you would [necessarily] be looking for material that addressed possible developmental post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a worse case outcome to witnessing severe behaviour directed to oneself (primary force) and others (secondary force) where force is a structural term to explain the theorem. That would give you a peripatetic risk threshold to work from.
Beginning with an emotional dial (to address emotional distress) of itself presupposes a more developed modality (applied therapy) and that MAY be more difficult to source than one thinks because it is not behavioural where staff are concerned - rather it is autonomic in nature where fear and associated stress become too distorted to emotionally modify by the one experiencing the environmental behaviour of others.
One thing that easily springs to mind is sensory olfactory stimuli (akin to basic autonomic pathways) in a wind down event following all staff involvement in an experience of challenging behaviour.
A pleasant scent in a staff room adjacent to the stressful environment - that is charged when staff go home to induce a clear stimuli can do wonders for calming the senses - accompanied by a basic introduction to what behaviourism is - and not how it is pegged when emotional reason is applied.
Have you asked the above link the same question?
I will try to find something more structured and post the result later this evening.
Just for clarity, I am assuming that you are NOT wishing to introduce a CBT approach.
I AM assuming that you wish to facilitate a basic wellness precept more akin to psychosocial precepts than psychologically defined theory.
Yes I have contacted the link above and you're correct - I'm not looking for a CBT approach but I do like the idea of a multi sensory calm down approach. Thank you or taking the time to respond. Your reply has been useful.
I am still looking into the area of understanding you raised in the OP.
Before going any further, however, I felt it advisable for me to set down a process of understanding that gives direction and a likely reading of the thrust of your expressions.
I am expressly making recourse to Tort Law of damages arising out of sudden injury or harm occasioning psychiatric harm.
I made that point previously and made reference to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which appears first in this article (below link).
hja.net/expert-comments/opi...
For clarification:
I have no connection with and neither have I instructed the Law Firm in the link. I have included it chiefly because it a below the threshold of advice arising out of instruction seeing as it is by a CHARTERED LEGAL EXECUTIVE and not a solicitor. It is also up to date.
When trying to find a form of emotional (implied therapy) I realised that whilst your question was simple enough - the direction of [a] duty of care threshold on an employer - be that paid employee or voluntary worker - is an area that many are confused about.
From a personal point of view I have employed or else facilitated employment in LD care for the last 17 years. My very first experience of employing a young man with a disclosed prior psychiatric condition brought into sharp focus the reality of NOT understanding the risk to the employer and not simply the risk to the client and other members of staff.
One days work cost two months wages (3k) - NOT because I couldn't have summarily dismissed him - RATHER because it became clear in a single day that he was not in remission of his psychiatric aliment. So for HIS sake I released him without blemish and then supported him to find an appropriate employement.
I suppose that in thinking about your question, with the implied meaning of your staff being exposed to sudden trauma, I quickly realised that the correct way to answer or post any material source to your benefit would be better served by putting the Horse before the Cart and not YOUR getting to the Market (your client group) with the Horse tethered behind mistaking the distress for worthwhile effort.
As an Addendum - I am adding this link (below) dated to 1995 which was a consultation paper by The Law Commission number 137.
Part II, III, IV set down both the then present framework in Common and Public Law and raise questions about limiting recovery questions which was essentially for the consultation direction at that time.
lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2...
Part V expressly raised the point I have made (here) in Part V (6).
The penultimate paragraph on page 85 through 86 sets the clear bar for both contract, employment in a duty of care meaning and expresses it in precise terms having regard for the precedent case index being referenced no 107 in the paper at foot of page 85.
This was a provisional view as expressed at 5:63 - the obvious deficiency in my posting this is whether that view was enacted or left to Judicial progress (precedent law).
This below is the final outcome.
lawcom.gov.uk/project/liabi...
The report 137 is cited along with the final report LC249.
The express recommendations that were refused by parliament are expressed in the link.
Lastly, this (below) link is the official Gazette publication to the cp137 publication before the LC249 final report was published in 1998.
lawgazette.co.uk/news/a-tor...
Your professional body should be able to answer these points with ease. However, they may simply wish to prevaricate and cite their professional standards practise of due diligence on your own part.
I am simply removing any inference to offering advice (your term) without trying to demonstrate that MY suggesting a calm down mechanism MAY be equivalent to opening the gate to any employee or any volunteer (theoretically) to cost you far more to sustain them if they do develop a psychiatric illness or experience a trigger to an existing psychiatric illness than it would be to introduce a regulated therapy program to prevention.
That is of course entirely my personal view.
And here (below) the views of the sweet young things. 😍
Have you contacted local counselling charities to see if they can support you when needed? Your Learning Disability Mental Health team might be willing to help too. CBT has a place but not in dealing with emotional trauma.
Support and coronavirus restrictions 
Support Providers
Housing & Support for Adult with Learning Difficulties
Counselling support for young adult with moderate learning difficulties & on the Autistic Spectrum
