Adapting behaviour can sometime be a puzzle for young people to work out. Connect provides opportunity to work on all the following behavioural domains to best support young people and help them to adapt. Students are encouraged to make positive choices, take ownership of their behaviours and triggers, and have their achievements recognised. Staff are also focused on reducing SEMH domain triggers to ensure that student want to engage. These foci are part of lessons and some of the less mainstream activities done. Examples for each are shown below:
• Social – use of board games, chess, sports, trips, having visitors in
• Pro-Social – Interventions and Key work, team building, end of year residential
• Biological – The physical environment and providing food, sensory support
• Emotional – Interventions and Key work, support/communication with family, laughter
• Cognitive – Learning activities/challenges/competitions and academic key work/intervention
In addition to the above Connect uses its own BFL system for monitoring progress of young people attending a placement at Connect.
This focuses on 4 main parts:
1. Personalised Coping in Schools Scale (CISS) targets agreed on together (generally two)
2. A rating and weekly percentage on learning outcomes for each lesson
3. A rating and weekly percentage on behaviour outcomes for each lesson
4. A cooperation point available for each lesson that is totally each week
Young people that consistently do well with their BFL scores qualify for a range of additional experiences, activity days and rewards, including residential trips, vouchers as well as it leading to young people being able to transition back into mainstream for those it is appropriate for.
Some young people can also have their Connect BFL scores transferred into equivalent Classcharts points to access mainstream activity days depending on the placement type and time of referral.
Young people who demonstrate improvement in behaviour or consistently make positive choices also gain additional daily privileges such as access to addition menu items at break and lunch and access to additional activity resources such as games console time and free craft resources.
