As a 13-year-old living with Type 1 Diabetes, I was invited to attend the hospital-based youth project at Nottingham Children’s Hospital, it was this formative experience which led on to volunteering at the youth provision, and subsequently pursuing a career in delivering and teaching youth work.
As a practicing youth worker now for over 20 years I’ve seen my fair share of behaviours that challenge as well as a variety of different approaches that can be used to defuse, redirect and help young people to self-regulate more effectively.
As with all youth work, any approach must start from a place of safety and understanding what young people’s needs are to grow.
One of my most rewarding experiences in youth work was supporting a young person who was newly diagnosed and felt the world was against them.
Mark Howard,
NYA Youth Work Specialist
They would not engage with the medical professionals, missed school and often had angry outbursts as they were unable to express how they were feeling to the adults around them.
Starting from a place of safety
By taking time to talk, listen and understand their interests and needs, I built a trusted relationship, and they felt more able to describe how they were finding it difficult to come to terms with a lifelong medical condition. They joined our hospital-based youth club and gradually connected with other young people. Over time their confidence grew, and their school attendance improved. Eventually, they joined our youth forum and used their experience to support others.
But dealing with challenging behaviours doesn’t always come easily and can seem counter intuitive when the mercury hits red. The fact is that the behaviour is often unintentional and driven by emotion or instinct. It can also be intentional, learned behaviour or driven by rational thought – but there is invariably a root cause that once understood, can help support better self-management.
Giving young people the opportunity to shape their environment
Behaviour that challenges can present in different ways – from refusal or avoidance (to participate in an activity), to confrontation. It can be verbal, non-verbal and sometimes displayed through actions, which may be disruptive or violent. It can also manifest itself as anxiety or young people isolating themselves from others. Some young people may not be able to express what they are trying to say or explain their emotions. Those with a medical condition, disability or learning needs may experience communication barriers.
If you’re working with young people you’re likely to encounter challenging behaviour at some point, so it’s important you’re familiar with your organisation’s code of conduct, behaviour policy and safeguarding policy, and we’d also recommend that you involve young people themselves in defining what is acceptable within their environment. Giving young people the opportunity to shape their environment goes a long way in helping them to feel valued, empowered and better able to manage emotional turbulence or internal conflict.
Here are my five top tips to help you get started improving your approach to managing behaviour which challenges
- A key aspect is ‘seeing young people as young people’. Assess young people’s needs with a person-centred approach and ensure their individual needs shape outcomes.
- Regularly review and re-evaluate your approach – reflecting on practice (both individually and as a staff team) is invaluable. Can you build in the opportunity for team briefs and debriefs pre and post sessions, meetings and team building days?
- Link with your organisation policies such as safeguarding protocols and ensure young people having a say on these to embed their participation and build positive ownership. Also, is this information displayed clearly for them?
- The opportunity for regular supervision is key; ensure there are policies and procedures in place that support and underpin your work e.g. are risk assessments current? Discuss with your supervisor whether there is need for individual risk assessment with particular / the group of young people that you’re working with.
- If you are running a workshop or youth club session enable young people to develop their own group contract beforehand – let them agree what rules are required to maintain their safe space, so they set (and uphold) the boundaries.
A good starting point is the NYA ‘Youth Club in a Box’ toolkit, which provides a Community Profiling guide to help with young people’s needs assessments. The NAOMIE Project Plan Template supports scoping and evaluating projects, and risk assessment and safeguarding report templates are also available.
The NYA Academy Level 3 Diploma in Youth Work Practice course also offers a specific unit which addresses ‘Working with Behaviour that Challenges’ and explores an introduction to positive interventions and de-escalation techniques, to underpin your knowledge.
The unit covers the impact of positive feedback to change fixed mindsets and encourages learners to share and discuss the merits of different approaches they have used to address challenging behaviour.
