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10 steps to counselling children

October 29, 2007 By Megan Bayliss 3 Comments

The spiral of therapeutic change. Child counselling can take a long time because of the need to often restart the process.Children go to counselling to help integrate problems or difficulties. Something may have happened to them, they may have witnessed something awful, or their behaviour is unacceptable to the people around them.

Parents and carers often expect instant change; improvement in the child’s behaviour and thought processes. Just as counselling may initially stir up adult difficulties and make things tougher to begin with (often things get worse before they get better) so too does this happen with children.

Knowing what happens in child counselling can help parents, teachers or carers to grasp why it may seem that nothing is changing immediately. Although child counsellors are mostly open, sharing and caring people, we do sometimes forget that not everybody understands the way we work or why we work that way.

Just as making a cake or new recipe is guided by a recipe, so do we child counsellors have recipes for helping to create change – a model (case plan) of how we plan our sessions with the child and what we do step by step. This is often referred to as our therapeutic intervention or our framework of counselling. In court, child counsellors will often be asked to state what their treatment plan for the child was. Having a plan means having something to follow, something to guide the way child counsellors work and what they do.

A common framework of child counselling is Geldard’s Spiral of Therapeutic Change (pictured). This spiral will explain to you what a child counsellor may be doing with your child behind closed doors. It is called a spiral because often the process of child counselling is not linear, clear cut and plain sailing. When things get uncomfortable or scary, the child will often withdraw from the counsellor and the counsellor needs to go back and start the process of joining over again.

The 10 steps to counselling children:

  1. The child comes to counselling because there is an emotional disturbance of some sort
  2. The child and counsellor join (relationship building time)
  3. The child begins to tell their story when they trust and like the counsellor
  4. The child’s awareness of issues increases
    1. Often the issues are too painful or embarrassing and the child will deflect or withdraw.
    2. The counsellor helps the child to deal with their resistance to the pain. If successful, the counselling process moves to the next step.
    3. If the child cannot deal with the pain and continues to avoid then the counsellor changes the media (art, books, sand play, toys, etc) they are using to help reach the child and they go back top the stage where the child tells their story. Often a different media enables a child to tell their story in a different way.
  5. The child continues to tell their story and to get in touch with strong emotions
    1. Once the emotional flood gate is open, many new or hidden emotions come out.
    2. New issues often emerge here and can cause further emotional disturbance for the child. It is the counsellors job to take the child back to the beginning of the spiral of therapeutic change and to start the process over again.
  6. The child deals with their self destructive beliefs
  7. The child looks at different options, choices and ways of behaving
  8. The child rehearses and experiments (in the safety of the counselling room) with new behaviours
  9. The Child reaches resolution and is ready to face the world again
    1. Sometimes the child will throw up undisclosed issues at this point and the child therapist needs to start at the beginning again to deal with these issues separately.
  10. The goal of child counselling, adaptive functioning is achieved.

Child counsellors all work in different ways and have different tools of trade. Some child counsellors only use themselves and their words as a tool for therapeutic change. Others will only ever use paper and pencils. A child therapy room may boring or it may be full of wonderful and exotic looking treasures. There may be paint, glue, feathers, books, dolls, dress ups, toys, puppets, the list of resources is endless.

If you are taking your child to a child counsellor you are well within your rights to ask the child counsellor what model of counselling they work from. If they tell you just the theories they work from (usually they will give you names of people who have worked out why kids sometimes become emotionally unravelled), ask them to explain in a step by step process how they will create change in your child, not why they will create change in your child.

If you are a child or family focused therapist, Imaginif offers supervision. Face to face, telephone or email supervision can be arranged if you live in Australia. If you are looking for some protective play resources or innovative ideas on how to use common items in therapy, have a browse through our protective play shop or register in our safety talk forum to receive a copy of our eBook jam packed with therapeutic games and activities designed around the BITSS model of protective behaviours.

Article by Megan Bayliss

Reference: Geldard, K & D (2002) Counselling Children. Sage:London

You may also be interested in these short articles about children, trauma and child therapy:
Teaching emotional intelligence
The affects of childhood trauma
Learning ability in traumatised children
The effect of trauma on secure attachment in children

Article by Megan Bayliss

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Filed Under: Child Safety & Protection Tagged With: ,

Pornography, or a rude snap shot of Family First in Australia

October 28, 2007 By Megan Bayliss 2 Comments

Violence against women and children, Australia says NO.Family First, an Australian political party whose policies emphasise socially conservative family values, has been rocked by a pornographic email involving one of its election candidates.  Chris Tinkler reports that:

Andrew Quah was disendorsed as a candidate and expelled from Victorian Senator Steve Fielding’s pro-family party yesterday after the Sunday Herald Sun uncovered his indiscretions.

Mr Quah, 22, had earlier admitted to posing for two images, one partly undressed and the other clutching his private parts, attached to an email circulating across the country.

He said he could not rule out being responsible for producing a third image attached to the email featuring graphic shots of a man’s genitalia.

and

…Mr Quah admitted to downloading porn on the web as recently as two weeks ago.

The sleaze scandal is a big blow for Family First, whose key platforms include tackling internet pornography.

On Friday, Mr Quah said: “The first two (images) are definitely from me and the third one might have been from me.”

He added: “Yes, I’ve downloaded pornography, maybe a couple of weeks ago.”

The use of sleaze and the sexual objectification of women, children and men knows no class, political or philosophical boundaries. Just as child abusers look like the rest of us, so too do those who sprout one set of values yet act out another. It is unlikely that Mr Quah’s pornographic dealings and actions were in isolation from his personality and social make up. This is just the time he got caught doing something he shouldn’t. The polarisation of his words and actions (not only in relation to pornography) have most likely been evident for some time – but until now, nobody has acted on it.

When assessing internal risk in individuals, I look for opposites – the overtly covert: polarised views and behaviours for example; the openness about being sneaky and manipulating. How one (or many as history bears out) can espouse socially conservative family values and then act in an non socially acceptable and promiscuous manner leaves me wondering if perhaps we so called radicals who fight against perversion are the social conservatives while those who claim they are “good and wholesome” are in fact sexual deviates hiding behind an ideology. I accept that this is sensationalist and reactive, however, I am concerned that so many individuals tasked with looking out for the needs of a group of people are also guilty of abuse.

Abuse is everywhere but so are we. Speak up against violation. The Family First Party has obviously risk managed and banished the tarnished violator from their fold. Is this enough? Will those affected by conservative abusers feel safe enough to talk out? 

No matter who commits an offence, the power of telling the truth is always greater. My truth is that there is far too much sexual abuse and assault in general, let alone from people in privileged positions of political trust. My hope is that Family First will continue to strengthen their conviction of a zero tolerance toward any sort of sexual and domestic violence and join the crusade against child abuse rather than strengthening incestuous connections.

Article by Megan BaylissFurther research about Family First:

Pornographic pictures rock Family First
Family First Party (Wikipedia)
Family First (home page)

Article by Megan Bayliss

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Filed Under: Child Abuse

WIN a book. Spot prize giveaway

October 28, 2007 By Megan Bayliss 2 Comments

WIN some child safety this Christmas

The next person to raise a topic in Imaginif’s Safety Talk forum will win a copy of my junior fiction protective behaviour chapter book:
Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast.

 

 

Click on the book picture (left) to read a shop description and see the value of this book that could be yours by merely starting a topic in our Safety Talk forum.

 

It is time to talk!

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Filed Under: Child Abuse

Safe Kids: and The Act

October 28, 2007 By Char 2 Comments

Article by Charmayne (Char) PaulWell~ I’ve had a busy week learning more about safe kids and the Child Protection Act, 1999. I expect a lot from the child protection workers I engage with on a daily basis as a foster carer, and so I’ve decided to step up to the challenge myself. Oh the joys of policy analysis :-) It is one of the frustrations of being in the child protection system that so much legislation does exist, amendments occur regularly and no-one ever seems to be up to date with most of it! So as a busy multi-tasker myself, I’m going to help my foster child, other foster parents, the rest of my child protection team and myself to be aware and implement best practices to keep kids safe.

Experience has shown me (I am an online tutor) that the best way to read an Act is to have a goal. Recently I was having a hissy fit over the different points of view about people staying overnight at my home~ the boundaries kept shifting. I’ve been a carer for almost 9 months and in that time have had friends, lovers and family over for dinner/drinks/dvds or to babysit and have invited the person to stay the night. As none of these people “regularly” stayed over I did not ask them to get a Blue Card, as outlined during my initial interviews and assessments to become a foster carer. However, a week ago it became clear that “regular” can mean different things to different people.

According to the Child Protection Act, 1999 there is a criteria to determine who is legally considered to be a “regular” member of a household. If a person “stays overnight in the person’s home at least – once a week in a month; or once a fortnight in 2 consecutive months or; once a month in 6 consecutive months” (CPA, 1999, Schedule 3(b)(i)(ii)(iii)) they meet the frequency test criteria to be considered a regular member of the household.

So at present, I have no one in my life meeting these requirements, though my support team and I are now reviewing my child’s support plan to ensure that his special needs, my lifestyle choices and our safety strategies are functional and clear. However, this is an issue that should have been nutted out at the beginning of the placement- I am a 35, single, sexually active and social being. And he is a child who was placed with me to learn about “normal” functioning.

Evidently child protection workers and foster carers need to understand more about legislation for keeping kids safe, and we need to review it on a regular basis (pun intended). Carer frustration at apparent increasing control over one’s life and lack of consistent information; children’s anxiety and confusion brought on by stressed out carers; and workers stressed about making the most correct decision to ensure children’s safety, could be negated by us all getting to know the boundaries a bit(ss) better.

Guide to Child Protection Legislation

Invest in Foster Carers and We’ll all Benefit

Foster Care Training: Online Learning for Therapeutic Parenting


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Filed Under: Child Safety & Protection, Foster Care/Children

Helping Children Of The California Wildfires

October 28, 2007 By user2 2 Comments

safe_kids-photo.jpgChild Safety is about total safety for a lifetime. This means fire safety, too. This past week, devastating California Wildfires swept through southern California from the Los Angeles basin to San Diego. We’re helping the kids whose families lost their homes, lost everything, in the wildfires. We want to help the kids.

The kids are the smallest, most innocent victims. I’ve exchanged emails this week with Megan Bayliss and this post is going to be about helping the kids who now have no home because of the fire. Preston and I just have to do something. Not only are we Californians, we also have many friends and colleagues down south that have evacuated or lost their homes. Through their stories we have become very aware of the children whose families have lost their homes and everything they have accumulated over an entire lifetime.

The fires started in Malibu with wicked winds downing a power line. A single spark ignited the flames. Sick, demented individuals seemed to have set most of the rest of the fires. Incredibly high winds spread the flames. Innocent people were caught in the middle and the kids were the most innocent victims.

We were actually in Long Beach, just south of Los Angeles for a seminar when the winds kicked up early last Sunday morning. When our flight took off from LAX that night we could see the fires over Malibu. The eerie orange flames could be seen dancing across the dark horizon. The smoke stretched for miles. I wondered how I would stand up to such a challenge if it were my home, my family in danger.

Keeping Kids Safe is raising $1,000,000.00 for the fire victims. We’re supporting “Save The Children” and will donate our funds to that organization. The holidays are coming, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ll head south again and make two contributions, one just before Thanksgiving. We’ll do it again at Christmas.

We are fortunate that we can help so many families and keep kids safe with our book and products doing well online. So for every product sold between now and Christmas we ourselves will donate 25% of the sale to the victims. We’ll also donate the money in the name of the person buying the product.

There’s also something special for the children.

Preston’s nine year old daughter has started a campaign to collect new stuffed animals to send down to the children whose homes have burned in the fire. This was her idea. She met with the principal of her school to start a “Hugs From Highlands” campaign. Highlands is the name of her school.

She is collecting new, stuffed animals for the children that are victims of the fire storm. She has a very special stuffed animal that she cannot imagine losing. She fears many of the kids whose homes burned may have lost their “special” stuffed animal.

I told my boys about this yesterday, too. My oldest one still has his treasured stuffed animal from when he was very young. I caught him sitting in the middle of his bedroom floor after school, holding it. He claimed it just fell off the shelf as he was grabbing his light saber. OK, sure.

Kids can teach us the darndest things.

So we’re embracing Hugs From Highlands, too. For anyone donating a new stuffed animal to us, we’ll send you a Free copy of our Bestselling Book in eBook form AND a copy of BOTH of our Safety videos in digital download format.

It’s a THANK YOU, not a bribe but bribes help. Details on our website. Just click below the fire photo.
-Joyce Jackson

Preston Jones and Joyce Jackson are child safety experts in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA. Keeping Kids SafeTM is a comprehensive personal safety program covering the full gamut of the things kids need to know today to be safe in their world for their entire lifetime. Their entire APPROACH to total child safety is UNIQUE. One, they teach kids to keep themselves safe. Two, they teach parents to reinforce their safety techniques at home by making families better with safer kids. For more information go to www.KeepingKidsSafeToday.com.

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Filed Under: Child Safety & Protection
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