By Helen Runciman, Integrated Children's Services,
South Lanarkshire Council
I was lucky enough to be awarded a fellowship from the Winston
Churchill Fellowship Trust (WCMT) in 2010 and spent two months
travelling in the USA and Australia under the auspices of
work. That would have been good enough in itself, but the
experience turned out to be far greater that I could have imagined,
and created opportunities that I hope will contribute to our
understanding of, and ways of working with, children who have
experienced severe trauma.
The purpose of the trip was to look at early intervention
strategies in both countries, primarily to see what could be
learned from practice. My interest was grabbed by the work of the
Child Trauma Academy (www.childtrauma.org) which is based
in Houston, Texas but also contributes to treatment facilities
across the USA, Canada and Australia. It has developed a model
which is informed by theories of neuroscience and understanding of
the sequential way in which the brain develops.
A child's brain develops to 80% of adult capacity by the age of
three and 90% by the age of four so the potential for serious
damage to be done in a child's most formative years, as a result of
exposure to trauma, is significant.
The starting process for working with this model is getting a
snapshot of the child's brain function by using the assessment tool
referred to as the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT).
This is a very detailed assessment which maps a child's
developmental experiences from the time of conception, in utero to
the present and also the extent of 'relational health' which a
child has experienced. This refers to the quality of care and
nurturing which they have received and the degree of support they
get from all those in their lives, including parents and carers,
school or nursery, clubs, activities and any other adults involved
in their lives.
All the information is run through a computer program which
provides a picture of where the child's strengths and weaknesses
might lie, as dictated by the extent to which difficult early
experiences may have impacted on their brain development.
With this understanding, interventions and strategies are suggested
to help with the child's specific areas of difficulty.
The prognosis seemed so positive and hopeful that I wanted to
see if such an approach could translate to our own cultural
climate.
Since coming back, I have been working to set up a pilot study
with South Lanarkshire Council's Family Placement Team which I hope
will answer this question.
The pilot study has been designed for children in foster care
who are not able to return home. The objective is to help this
group of extremely vulnerable children develop the capacity to
self-regulate as, without this, they are unable to progress
developmentally. It is also hoped that it will strengthen
their carers' understanding and make use of their huge potential to
implement strategies which we believe will contribute to children's
recovery.
The prognosis for change appears to be very good because the
brain is relatively 'plastic' and suggestible to patterned
interventions. The assessment helps direct interventions
towards areas where they are most needed and which are most
effective in meeting the child's needs. We will focus
initially on interventions that help shore up the lower levels of
the brain as they are responsible for some of our most basic
functioning.
The interventions are based on patterned rhythmic and repetitive
activities which encourage new neural pathways to develop. We
hope these will strengthen the child's capacity to self-regulate;
one of the core foundations of healthy development.
For more information see www.childtrauma.org or
contact helen.runciman@ics.s-lanark.org.uk
For details of how to apply to the Winston Churchill Fellowship
Trust see www.wcmt.org.uk
Read the full
report of Helen's trip