Positive Relationships and Behaviour Support

Children in the Home are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on:

• Mutual respect and trust;
• An understanding about acceptable behaviour; and
• Positive responses to other children and adults.

In particular, the registered person will ensure that staff:

• Meet each child's behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child's relevant plans;
• Help each child to develop socially aware behaviour;
• Encourage each child to take responsibility for the child's behaviour, in accordance with the child's age and understanding;
• Help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone;
• Communicate to each child expectations around their behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;
• Help each child to understand, in a way that is appropriate according to the child's age and understanding, personal, sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be supportive or harmful;
• Help each child to develop the understanding and skills to recognise or withdraw from a damaging, exploitative or harmful relationship;
• Strive to gain each child's respect and trust;
• Understand how children's previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children;
• Are provided with supervision and support to enable them to understand and manage their own feelings and responses to the behaviour and emotions of children, and to help children to do the same;
• De-escalate confrontations with or between children, or potentially violent behaviour by children;
• Understand and communicate to children that bullying is unacceptable; and
• Have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them; and
• That each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others.

Children should be supported to understand how to build friendships with other children. They should be able to spend time with their friends in the local community, in their home area, and by having friends visit them at the Home, in line with the child’s plans, age and understanding.

Staff should understand and help children to understand what makes a healthy, nurturing relationship. Staff should be skilled in understanding the range of influences that friendships can have and should encourage those with a positive impact and discourage those with a negative impact. Staff should be skilled to recognise the signs and provide support to children in danger of or involved in exploitative or damaging relationships with others and where possible prevent these types of relationships.

In the case of children who have, or are likely to, sexually offend, the Home should establish the extent to which friendships can be supported, in line with the child's relevant plans and subject to the safety of all concerned.

The Home is committed to an holistic approach that draws on established theoretical bases, research, best practice and guidance in order to promote and develop positive behaviour.

The Home’s approach to behaviour support:

• Aims to create a safe, caring environment where children are supported to develop understanding and empathy towards each other;
• Ensures that all children have opportunities to become confident and achieve their full potential;
• Encourages the child's consultation and participation in setting rules and consequences;
• Recognises that some behaviours can present as aggressive, violent or destructive at times and that staff will be supported to regulate, understand and support the child with these behaviours whilst providing the child with continuing acceptance and emotional support;
• Focuses on building a good relationship with the child based on mutual respect, trust and an unconditional acceptance of the child;
• Establishes house rules and boundaries with the child which are consistent, explicit and where possible, applicable to all children in the Home;
• Understands and acknowledges the past life experiences which children bring into the home;
• Uses age and developmental stage appropriate consequences but only as necessary and not as routine. Consequences will be logical and linked to behaviour. Children will be supported to complete these consequences;
• Provides support and training to the staff to support them in their role;
• Encourages staff to celebrate success with the child so that the child can experience joy in their relationships and reward the child  appropriately;
• Accepts the individuality of children and young people and celebrates the diversity of their backgrounds.

The quality of relationships between professionals, staff caring for the children, the children and their parents (as appropriate) is crucial to this approach.

Staff play an important part in the day-to-day life of a child, and will be trained and supported in establishing positive relationships with children and in managing behaviour, including behaviour which may be challenging at times.

Staff training on behaviour support will enable them to achieve and develop a more positive relationship with the child and a more harmonious life and will enable the child to feel good about themselves. The development of safe, stable and secure relationships with staff in the Home is central to the ethos of the Home and supports the development of secure attachments that, where appropriate, persist over time.

The capacity and competence of staff to build constructive, warm relationships with children that actively promote positive behaviour, provides the foundations for managing any negative behaviour. Where positive relationships exist between children and staff this should be respected and maintained as far as possible when making any decisions to alter staffing arrangements. The registered person should respond to children's views about changes to staff and be aware of the potential impact this may have for the child’s stability and emotional well-being.

Positive behaviour and relationships should be reinforced, praised and encouraged; poor behaviour should be discussed with the child.

Staff should at all times endeavour to:

• Understand factors that affect children's motivation to behave in a socially acceptable way to enable them to respond to each child’s individual behaviour;
• Encourage an enthusiasm for positive behaviour through the use of positive behaviour strategies in line with the child's relevant plans;
• Listen to and empathise with children, respect their thoughts and feelings and take their wishes into consideration;
• Look for things that are going well, or any step in the right direction, and appropriately reward it;
• Use rewards in a creative and diverse way, specific to children's needs, capabilities and interests. This may mean that children are rewarded with activities or rewards that they enjoy. But all 'tangible' rewards should be accompanied by use of 'non tangible' encouragement and support – by staff demonstrating to children that they have done well. Such 'non tangible' rewards include smiling and praising children;
• Make sure that children and young people are aware of the things that they have done well. This should involve prompt verbal feedback, along with clear recording in the child’s file. All ‘tangible’ rewards will be clearly identified; 
• Where necessary, manage conflict, maintain constructive dialogues and react appropriately if challenged by a child in their care.

The PACE model can help staff work successfully with a child.

PACE stands for:

Sometimes 'L' for Love is included, making PLACE.

The Home will have  house rules, routines and rituals which set out the expectations for how things are managed within the Home. Helping the child understand these rules, routines and rituals helps the child have a sense of understanding, belonging and safety. 

These house rules should be recorded on the Placement Plan and in the safe caring document.

House rules will be posted in the staff office, in the Children’s’ Guide and on children’s notice boards. House rules will be revised regularly in consultation with the children and staff team.

• Treating each child with understanding, dignity, kindness and respect; building, protecting and preserving positive relationships between each child and the adults caring for them;
• Understanding each child’s behaviour to allow their needs, aspirations, experiences and strengths to be recognised and their quality of life to be enhanced;
• Involving children and relevant others wherever practical in behaviour support;
• Supporting each child to balance safety from injury (harm) with making appropriate choices;
• Making sure the child’s rights are upheld.

Before a child is admitted to the Home, the placing authority will provide information on the following as part of the placement planning process:

• Any previous behaviour that challenges (including violence and aggression);
• A description of the behaviour, including any triggers so staff can identify whether there are any patterns of behaviour.

Staff in the Home should also ascertain the following:

• What intervention and support have been used to manage the behaviour?
• What interventions and support have had positive outcomes?
• What interventions and strategies triggered further acts of aggression or violence?
• Whether additional specialist support (e.g. from Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services (CYPMHS)) is required.

The Home will work closely with the placing authority to understand the child's relationship history and the impact that the child's arrival may have on the group living in the Home.

The Home will maintain effective working relationships with local youth justice and police services where children living in the Home have targets to achieve in reducing offending or socially unacceptable behaviour.

The Home will work closely with health and education professionals to ensure that outcomes identified and progress made by children in building relationships and achieving socially acceptable behaviours can be recorded and measured.

The Home’s manager should:

• Ensure all staff are provided with training on how to de-escalate conflict and confrontation and manage aggression and potentially violent behaviour (see Use of Restraint and Physical Intervention);
• Undertake written risk assessments and develop strategies for managing any behaviour that challenges in individual cases.

The child’s Placement Plan should outline strategies/support for managing and promoting positive behaviour. If necessary, there should be a separate detailed Behaviour Support Plan/Risk Management Plan.

See also: Risk Assessment and Planning Procedure.

The Home’s approach to positive behaviour support ensures that:

The Home provides an environment and culture that promotes, models and supports positive behaviour.

A healthy dialogue is in place so changes to rules can happen as the child matures or if these rules are no longer needed for example later bed times etc.

Children are enabled to build trusted and secure relationships with adults who are looking after them. Staff, who know the children well, listen to them, invest time in them, protect them and promote their welfare. Children are enabled to develop an appropriate sense of permanence and belonging.

The care and help from staff assists children to develop a positive self-view and to increase their ability to form and sustain attachments and build emotional resilience and a sense of their own identity. This care and help also supports them to overcome any previous experiences of neglect and trauma.

All staff receive training in positive care and support of children, including training in de-escalating problems and disputes.

Conflict management is used effectively by staff and includes the appropriate use of restorative practices that improve relationships, increase children's sense of personal responsibility and reduce the need for formal police intervention. Proactive and effective working relationships with the police help to support and protect children. Staff work with the police to protect children from any unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system.

Children are encouraged and helped to develop skills and strategies to manage their own conflicts and difficult feelings through developing positive relationships with staff. There are clear, consistent and appropriate boundaries for children.

Children receive help and support to manage their behaviour and feelings safely. Staff respond with clear boundaries about what is safe and acceptable and seek to understand the triggers for behaviour.

Positive behaviour is promoted consistently. Staff use effective de-escalation techniques and creative alternative strategies that are specific to the needs of each child and planned in consultation with them where possible.

Staff receive support on how to manage their responses and feelings arising from caring for children, particularly where children display behaviour that is very challenging, and understand how children's previous experiences can manifest in behaviour that challenges.

Any consequences used to address behaviour should be restorative in nature, to help children recognise the impact of their behaviour on themselves, other children, the staff caring for them and the wider community. In some cases it will be important for children to make reparation in some form to anyone hurt by their behaviour and the staff in the Home should be skilled in supporting the child to understand this and carry it out.

Equally, staff should understand the system for rewarding and celebrating positive behaviour and recognising where children have managed situations well.

The Home Manager must monitor, evaluate and review the use of consequences and that the consequence  used has been appropriate.

The effectiveness of consequences should be reviewed to ensure  consequences are an effective tool and to help identify any patterns in behaviour. If the consequences are not working alternative methods should be applied.

The review of the appropriateness, and effectiveness, of any additional measure should include the opinion of the child that the measure relates to.

Consequences to be recorded in the Consequences Record and child's record.

The record should contain the opinions of the child.  If they are not willing to give an opinion then the record should evidence the time and date that their opinion was sought.

Where relevant, a decision should be made between the staff member, the manager and child about whether to report matters to the police, see Offending and Anti-Social Behaviour – guidance on when to involve the Police Procedure.

Whenever an act of violence or aggression has occurred, the Home’s manager should ensure that both staff and the child concerned are allowed to discuss the incident and its impact on themselves and others in the group.

Managers should:

• Undertake a review and make necessary changes to internal policies, routines and children’s Placement Plans to help with reducing or preventing incidents from occurring in the future;
• Discuss with staff how they dealt with the situation and, if required, how they could deal with the situation differently in the future.

The Home’s manager should collate data from incidents and periodically undertake a review. The Home’s policies, training strategies, routines and methods for promoting positive behaviour amongst children should be revised as required.

If the level of risk is such that the continuing placement of the child is threatened, or may be at risk of coming to an end, the Home’s manager must draw this to the attention of the child’s social worker and Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO), who may decide to convene a Looked After Review.

Legislation, Statutory Guidance and Government Non-Statutory Guidance

Positive and Proactive Care: Reducing the Need for Restrictive Interventions - Department of Health and Social Care

Guidance: Positive Environments Where Children Can Flourish (Ofsted)