What’s new
Dame Christine Lenehan
The Lenehan Review – These Are Our Children
Working with children and young people with challenging behaviour: changes needed at every level of the system Last summer the then Minister for Social Care asked me to undertake a review of the system to understand why it continued to fail children and young people with a dual diagnosis of mental health needs and learning […]
New Resources: A Pathway for Children
The Challenging Behaviour Foundation has been working with the National Development Team for inclusion (NDTi) to develop three new resources setting out a vision of future local pathways for children with learning disabilities and/or autism whose behaviours may challenge.Family Carer Jacky shows why a new Children’s Pathway is needed: My son Tomas became eighteen in September, and […]
Ro Rossiter, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Honorary Researcher at the Tizard Centre
Early Intervention Project: Looking back, looking forward
As an Early Intervention Project Steering Group member, I’ve spent some time reflecting on the progress, impact and future now that the 3 year project funding has ended. The Early Intervention Project has been the most focused, dynamic and energizing piece of work I can remember being part of (and at my age that is […]
Restrictive Interventions
My daughter, Laura, often becomes anxious in environments that she cannot cope with. Because she has a sensory processing disorder, as is often the case for people with severe or complex needs, she can find her surroundings and contexts (lights, noise, people, unfamiliarity, bad night’s sleep…) more stressful than your typical person. Furthermore, Laura cannot […]
Keeping in touch with home
The CBF and Mencap have published a new report based on research with families whose children are in residential placements. The report is the first time guidance has been issued on how residential settings should ensure parents can keep in touch with the thousands of children and young people with a learning disability who often live […]
Understanding Humanity
For the last 40 years I have had the pleasure of working alongside disabled children, young people and their families. My career started in the long stay hospitals of the late 1970s and early 80s when we finally began, as a society, to believe that children and adults with learning disabilities should live in the […]
Handing the power to family carers through Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) resources
I am a researcher, so I am going to start this blog with some research findings. In 2014, Gemma Griffith (Bangor University) and I published a study where we summarised research studies from around the world in which family carers of children and adults with learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges were interviewed about their lives. […]
Photo credit: Keith Wyncoll
Keeping in sight and in mind – supporting family contact in residential special schools
“Parents often talk about how hard it is to take the decision for their child to live outside the family home – even if they have fought hard for a specialist school placement. Where schools are a long distance from the family home, there are particular concerns about how to stay in touch. “A good […]
Dehumanised. Feelings don’t count. Silenced by red tape. Held down.
Lost in Transition
We have all heard the phrase ‘transition is like falling off a cliff, or into a black hole.’ That is exactly what it was like for me and my son. Our family’s experience inspired me to create Lost in Transition, a short film. I want our story to make people think, to give feeling to […]
Where do we go for help?
Over the three years we have been working towards “Paving the Way” many families have said to us “We knew there was a problem when our child was really young but we did not know who to go to for help.” Those families who did speak to a professional often found that person was as […]
Welcome to our website!
We are delighted to announce the launch of the Paving the Way online resource. Paving the Way is our new name for the Early Intervention Project, a joint project between the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, and the Council for Disabled Children.