Workshop 9, 25/5 16:30-17:45

Margaret Smith and Denise Wilson (UK)

Dr Margaret Smith and Denise Wilson, Southampton City Council and Solent Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service UK

NB : Pre conference workshop, on the 25th of may 16.30 pm - 17.45 pm

A New Vision on Relationships: NVR within an integrated approach to working with Attachment

In Southampton we have been using Non Violent Resistance (or, as our parent mentors re-named it; a New Vision on Relationships) since 2008. It is fully integrated within the practice of our multi-agency team, which workstherapeutically with attachment (children and families within care, adoption and edge of care systems).

How we have developed NVR in our setting has been to incorporate key elements of our core attachment-focussed practice, notably Dyadic Developmental Psychology (DDP) developed by Dan Hughes and Kim Golding. Our attached article, published in the special NVR focussed edition of Context journal, explains how we went about this and how NVR in turn enhanced the attachment work within our service.

In our workshop we would love to show how NVR has dovetailed with our use of Hughes’ PACE model (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy). We would demonstrate how this, together with associated elements of mindfulness and brain-based parenting models, can be used to enhance mentalizing capacity and so increase adult presence and maintain de-escalated interaction. Hand in hand with this, intensified relational gestures nurture the ‘repair’ element of NVR.

We would show how when inter-subjectivity is created/restored in this way, children and young people reply with their own relational gestures. Most recently we have overseen the application of ‘NVR in reverse’ whereby the young people have been successfully enabled, through using the same approaches, to manage their responses to their parents and promote the rebuilding of relationships.

In our workshop we would show how we practice NVR through role play demonstration, opportunities for interaction, handout materials and video clips.

We hope you enjoy reading our article and we look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in Malmoe.