Bringing professional de-escalation skills into the family home
This post is about conflict management | personal safety | dynamis training. Gerard is just back from a trip to Liverpool, where he was commissioned by a local authority social work team to give assistance to a group of parents who look after their children with complex needs at home.
The workshop gives parents a chance to ask a use-of-force, de-escalation, and physical interventions specialist about how to deal with situations that arise when their child with complex needs becomes distressed and might:
- Hurt themselves (self-injurious behaviour)
- Hurt another child in the home
- Hurt the parent or other carer
The workshop takes its cues for pace, direction, and content from those attending. Parents often arrive with questions about frequent or severe situations that arise in their home life — looking after vulnerable but unpredictable children — and they genuinely want advice about steps they could take, and steps they should avoid.
[!] Key insight: We developed this workshop format and a subset of tactics for parents over a period of years, after regularly meeting parents on our occupational skills courses who were desperate for advice and guidance for home-context scenarios — situations that can become highly chaotic, dangerous, and potentially tragic.
Conflict Management | Personal Safety | Dynamis Training: What parents said
It was an excellent day. The trainer was really knowledgeable in giving me tools to protect my child. I only did the course yesterday and already used a couple of these actions last night. The trainer was also very helpful in giving us legal advice, which I wasn’t expecting.
Parent of Boy with Complex Needs, Workshop March 2017 in Knowsley
I’ve had Team Teach training for work — and this was by far better than anything else. I will be recommending this to anyone I know in a similar position to my family! I attended this as a parent and it was totally worth it. I feel more parents should have this training.
Parent of Young Woman with Complex Needs, Workshop March 2017 in Liverpool
For more information: dynamis.training/restraint-training-for-parents-and-carers
Gerard O’Dea provides tailored Prevention and Management of Violence and Aggression (PMVA), Breakaway, and Conflict Resolution training courses for education, care, health, and hospital service providers around the UK — so that service-users and staff are treated with dignity and shown respect, even in their most difficult moments.
Combining respectful verbalisation skills with last-resort physical alternatives for true, full-spectrum response-ability has been his specialty for over ten years as director of training for Dynamis.
This guide on conflict management | personal safety | dynamis training is part of our ongoing work with schools and academies.