Solution Focused Secure Unit and Residential Unit Training
Working to help young people to lead more productive lives
Stop Press: We now also provide all of our training courses via MSTeams and Zoom – please get in touch via info@brief-therapy-uk.com or Tel: 07779 242 289 for further information.
The Solution Focused Secure Unit:
The ethos that underpins the Solution Focused Secure Unit Training Programme is that young people respond better to raised expectations rather than warnings and sanctions.
This training is so transferable it will be part of whatever work I do, private life and professional life. I am a continued advocate for Solution Focused working.
Alistair Davidson, Secure Home Manager, Liverpool
Our courses range from 1, 2 and 3 day courses to a whole-team Staff & Unit Project Development structure 7 day Programme equiping staff to work within a framework that encourages a watershed for young people, and a renewed staff morale with everyone working to a strengths-based ethos.
Solution Focused Secure Unit Programme, Gladstone House, Dyson Hall, Liverpool
From the moment of arrival at a Solution Focused Secure Unit – the young person experiences courtesy and respect from a position of strength. Working to an ethos of “Catching residents doing something right” rather than focusing on what they are doing wrong. The workers look for, and feedback, noticed positive behaviour and attitude to staff and and peers throughout the young person’s time at the Unit both verbally and in Handover procedures. This ethos offers the young person an immediate opportunity for the start of new behaviour.
Similar attitudes have worked very well in adult prisons where even the most committed recidivists have responded to raised expectations.
On the basis that mistrust is easier to betray than trust, young people are taught in real ways about justice, responsibility and respect for others by example.
On admission, the young person is told “what is expected of him” rather than what he is “not allowed to do”; an increase of responsibility is offered instead of solely relying on the reward system to bring about constructive behaviour. We are not a fan of any material reward system for good behaviour as it does not reflect life in the community: no one receives a reward from the Council, for instance, for not parking on a double yellow line. The reward, we would consider, is the improved relationships, the self-discovery of progress for each young person.
Sanctions are explained by way of encouraging the young person to understand them not as a punishment, which is short-term and which they are well used to, but as a Consequence of their behaviour and a period of reflection is encouraged until given a fresh opportunity for the work to continue.
The young person is offered Groupwork sessions, including Developing as a Young Person; Art Expression; Anger Control; Parenting the 21st Century Child which the Unit staff have been trained to implement.
All staff, including support and domestic, working on the Unit are trained in the Solution Focused Secure Unit Approach to enable the ethos to be sustainable and unit-wide.
I found the training very useful, especially how to use the language. Also I will be using the analogies and metaphors. The best training ever and I feel every practitioner who works with families would benefit from this. Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
Mary Macaulay, Outreach Support Worker, Liverpool
The Solution Focused Residential Unit:
The Consultancy have developed a whole-team training and development framework for Local Authority and Private Residential Children’s Homes that providex an opportunity for children and young people to thrive in a strengths-focused ethos. The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC) included our Solution Focused Residential Unit Training Programme as a resource on their website. We have also developed a Shared Care Programme that encourages the inclusion of parents in respite care offered by local authorities.
The training will reinforce what I do in a more positive manner and also give me the confidence to apply it. Very informative course and delivered very professionally. Both trainers, Eileen and Mawuli delivered the course in a powerful way and crammed tons of information and work into the two days. Brilliant course, hope to do it again in the future.
Laurence Kennedy, Residential Worker, Kirby, Liverpool
For an informal discussion about the Solution Focused Secure Unit or the Solution Focused Residential Unit training or to enquire about inhouse courses on elements of this training – please contact us at info@brief-therapy-uk.com or Tel 07779 242 289.
