Skills for Living The Hub Andrew Dunn Dr Gina Cratchley Harriet - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Skills for Living – The Hub

Andrew Dunn Dr Gina Cratchley Harriet Collie Chris Morgan Charlie Jewell

• Skills for Living is designed to improve the psychological

well-being of young people leaving care

• It offers young care leavers the opportunity to participate in

a structured programme of psychosocial skills development using Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) as its primary intervention

• The project covers the 3 Boroughs of Gwent: Caerphilly,

Torfaen and Newport

Skills for Living – The Hub

Skills for Living Team Structure

Georgina Cratchley Clinical Psychologist Jennie Welham Children’s services Manager Andrew Dunn Practice Team Leader Christopher Morgan Young Person's Practitioner Charlotte Jewell Young Person's Practitioner Harriet Collie Assistant Clinical Psychologist Cariad Mahoney Team Leader Administration

• DBT is a therapy that was developed by Marsha Linehan

as a means of working with individuals with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder

• Over the years it has been used with people who display

high risk taking behaviour regardless of their diagnosis

• Our DBT intervention model has been adapted for working

with young care leavers aged 16-24 years old

• It provides a hierarchical approach to working with

individuals who present with unpredictable mood, self- destructive behaviours and unrelenting crises

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

• To help young people begin to understand difficult early

experiences which can often leave them with conflicting, confusing thoughts and behaviours

• To target high risk behaviours
• To understand emotions and how to cope when

emotionally distressed

• To manage important significant relationships when

distressed

• To ask for their needs to be met
• To keep their self respect

What we aim to achieve

Service Delivery

Weekly individual sessions with young people Young people will continue to be psychometrically tested pre/post group and then at a 6 month follow up.

Engagement phase DBT informed Group- work phase

Continued Significant

• ther Work

Continued Training and Consultations to professionals

On completion of core intervention – young person will be assigned a Strand / Community pathway

• Value the therapeutic relationship (attachment model)
• Use of validation
• Dialectic of change verses acceptance
• Helping the young person
• Willingness verses wilfulness

Ingredients of DBT

• Mindfulness
• Distress Tolerance
• Emotion Regulation
• Interpersonal Effectiveness

The Psychosocial Skills Modules

• Capacity to pay attention, non-judgementally to the

present moment

• Experiencing one’s emotions and senses fully yet with

perspective

• Why is it useful for young people?
• It helps to increase awareness of inner experiences
• …but not get lost in them
• Helps to increase sense of control of mind rather than mind

controlling you

• Helps to accept and tolerate powerful emotions
• Creates self awareness of body and mind connection
• Mindfulness helps bring down levels of emotional arousal

Mindfulness

• Distress tolerance skills teach young people to cope with

pain and distress in a healthy way so that it doesn’t lead to long term suffering

• The skills allow young people the time and emotional

space to make decisions from wise mind about whether and how to take action, rather than falling into intense, desperate and often destructive emotional reactions

• This is achieved through the development of distraction

techniques and relaxation / being kind to yourself strategies

Distress Tolerance

• Focuses on enhancing control of emotions, not just

surviving them

• Helps young people to identify and label emotions
• Helps reduce vulnerability to emotional mind
• Increases the likelihood of positive emotions through

pleasant events and mastery

Emotion Regulation

• To manage relationships and help to keep yourself safe
• Looking at how much are you asking for
• What is your Objective?
• Can other people meet your needs?
• Are you able to meet others needs?
• How important is this relationship?
• Keeping self-respect
• Strategies for asking for what you need (or want);

strategies for saying ‘no’, and coping with conflict.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Mindfulness Exercise

Young Person Q & A