Date and time

Friday 19 August 2022, 9.30 am to 3.30 pm

Delivery mode

In person at ISV, 40 Rosslyn St West Melbourne

Audience 

This learning event is right for you if you work with children who can become emotionally dysregulated and, as a consequence, are at increased risk of being physically restrained.

Description                                  

Teachers can be required to intervene when a student is presenting in a manner that is either a threat to themselves or others.  This can occur when there is not been the opportunity to put in place preventative strategies, thus teachers must deal with this crisis ‘in the moment’.

Verbal de-escalation is the primary strategy for dealing with these crisis situations ‘in the moment’ before they spiral into actual physical aggression. The assumption is that as a student becomes more agitated (or dysregulated) then the chance of actual physical violence increases dramatically. Thus, the aim of de-escalation is to reduce a student’s level of agitation so that it does not progress to actual physical violence.

Verbal de-escalation is a set of verbal and non-verbal skills which, if used selectively and appropriately, can reduce the level of an aggressor’s hostility by calming anger and lowering arousal.

Relevant Australian professional standards for teachers

4.  Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

7.  Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Key takeaways               

• knowledge of how to identify when a student is becoming increasingly agitated and therefore at increased risk of becoming violent
• understanding of how to de-escalate aggressive or challenging behaviour before it spirals into actual violence
• awareness of how to de-escalate students who have an ASD/ADHD diagnosis
• knowledge of  how to act in a non-provocative manner so as not to inadvertently cause or precipitate violent behaviour by the student.

Presenter information

Graeme Baird                  

Graeme  is a psychologist who has been involved in the out of home care area for over thirty years.

He developed Attend+. A program to assist the most marginalised young people in Australia to increase school attendance. These young people are often enmeshed in the youth justice, child protection and mental health systems, and education is the only path allows them to move forward and establish a stable school life.

Graeme is the owner of McAlpine-B – a training company whose purpose to ‘empower staff to empower their clients’.