PBs for All Agencies

I have thought about several stories/situations I have heard of over the past 3 days and how the outcomes may have been different if the people working in professional capacities in the situations might have known and used Protective Behaviours.

A colleague told me a story of a young person who punched their parent yesterday and then presented themselves at the police station.....only to be sent on their way. This seemed a sympathetic response on the part of the police, however if they knew PBs, they could have talked through FTB and made sure the young person and the parent both had their networks in place. A friend took their child for tests at the hospital to see whether they have begun to outgrow life threatening food allergies. The parent recounted how the people working as paediatric nurses in the department they attended barely interacted verbally with the child, showing no attempts to help the child feel safer and seemed unaware of the child's anxiety level and feelings of vulnerability. How different might it have felt had they been able to chat to the child about risking on purpose and seeing the test as such. The little boy who was killed by his mother in Scotland - I wonder if her health visitor or a past social worker for the family had known PBs? Might it have helped if the mother had heard Theme Two when she began to feel perhaps overwhelmed? And for someone she looked to for professional support to remind her she has choices.

I attended court this week to give evidence, and during the hours I spent waiting in the corridor, I saw lots of people come and go, and thought how most of them looked to be feeling very unsafe....then I saw someone walk past who looked vaguely familiar....I realised afterwards it was a person who works as a social worker - and she did PB training a few months ago. Hopefully she was able to use PBs for herself and those she worked with as she walked into the courtroom, perhaps returning to her safe place in her mind to help her feel safer.

It feels exciting that lots more people are accessing training to support them in their work role, and that PB training is offered as part of workforce development through our local authority. I hope it continues to spread and look forward to seeing more people who work with children and families speak the Language of Safety and use PBs in their professional role (and at home, too.)

Quite so, Judith, quite so. So many professionals from all sorts of agencies who have accessed PB training over the years in Warwickshire have said how useful it has been for their work. We can persist in sending the messages out and reinforcing them wherever possible. The biggest challenge (I think) is enabling practitioners to keep the messages alive in their thinking and interactions after what may be a very short period of training once in their career. It certainly helps if you train 'teams' so they can support each other and for sure having managers/ supervisors on board helps too.

Completely agree - if you can persuade schools to take on PBS as a whole school approach it is wonderful to see in action. Thanks for sharing
Maureen

I've been thinking about the term multi-agency and now that most schools are 'closed' for the holidays, just how important it is to have PBs working at this level.

I also agree with Ann about the importance of bringing people together who have already had some PB training to refresh knowledge, develop skills and share ideas. This was, and still is for me one of the reasons for creating and contributing to the PBPeople website!

I also think the re-introduction and/or continuation of local PB Network meetings helps to remind and re-engage individuals from across agencies with the PB process so think these are a really efficient way of taking PBs out of the training room and embedding in practice.

I would find it interesting to hear how 'local networks' are working and love attending Network meetings in different areas. I'm also planning to hold one where I'm now based so will share details as soon as dates are confirmed