De-escalation in Complex Needs Services

Simon Holding and Doremi Littlewood talk to Clare about effective de-escalation in complex needs services and settings.

Reflecting on their years of experience in both adult social care and primary special education, they highlight the importance of self-awareness and emotional availability within staff teams and explore the impact of practitioners’ own experiences and preconceptions of those they care for.

Doremi discusses the need for professionals to ‘play detective’ and identify sensory processing strategies and tools that enable individuals with complex needs to communicate effectively.

Doremi is a special educational needs advisor and has worked in primary special education for over 20 years. She has an honours degree in psychology and specialises in SEN. She has been a Team Teach trainer for a number of years. Doremi is in the process of extending her support, advice, and training to more schools and organisations through setting up her own company, DC Consultancy.

Simon is Adult Health & Social Care Lead at Team Teach and is part of the Learning and Development team. He has worked extensively within adult social care, including residential, short-break and day services, supported living settings, and care homes. He is an Intermediate and Advanced Team Teach trainer, delivering training to a wide range of services, and was part of the first authority to adopt Team Teach training for adult social care.

They also share three tips during the episode:

• 80-90% of communication is non-verbal, so it’s vital to pay attention to your own body language, gestures, and stance, reflecting on how these influence the behaviours you would rather see.
• Staff teams should be aware of the characteristics of an effective de-escalator, as this facilitates effective de-escalation at all times, not just when behaviours of concern are present.
• Being self-aware allows you to be emotionally available to others and forge strong therapeutic relationships with service users based on trust, consistency, and fairness.

The Team Teach podcast shares the latest thinking in behaviour, all in handy 15-minute (ish) bite-sized chunks. Each episode features a new guest chatting about a different aspect of behaviour and leaves you with three handy tips to use in your setting.

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