Adoption

Background/Story

Harry was referred to our service as the family were really struggling with his behaviour and were considering asking for him to be placed into care.  Harry and his elder sister had been adopted but at the point of referral they expressed that he would not be able to stay with them if his behaviours continued. Harry would regularly physically assault family members- mostly trying to control them and to make them feel scared. This would often happen in a very controlled manner with Harry being careful not to leave marks or bruises but being very threatening. He would pin parents to the floor and put pressure on their joints etc. and he would also trap his mother into the corner of the kitchen and repeatedly flick her face whilst goading her that he was in control. This behaviour could sometimes happen for 4 or more hours. Parents were trying to manage this behaviour but had no strategies to control Harry and were at the end of their tether.

Intervention

We worked with the family initially to put in place a safety plan so there was a clear plan of what to do in the event of Harry becoming aggressive. This included speaking to the local community policing team who made contact with the family so there was a named contact should the aggression get to a point where they felt that they needed to ring the police. We also utilised a ‘leave and wait’ strategy to give Harry space to calm down whilst parents removed themselves from risk of harm.

We then developed a behaviour plan with rewards for non-aggression and consequences for verbal and physical aggression. When Harry started truanting a rule was added to tackle this behaviour also. Harry started to realise that the route to get things he wanted was through adherence to rules rather than through aggression.

In addition to this we worked on improving the dynamics in the relationship between family members. It was observed that Harry’s parents had a very subtle way of showing praise and affection but that this wasn’t recognised by Harry.  We supported the family to develop more obvious signs of affection such as writing Harry short notes that they put in his room or in the bag when he when away for a school trip.  In short Harry gained a massive amount of attention by misbehaving whereas when he did as parents asked he would receive very subtle messages of acceptance that he didn’t perceive. This led to a mis-perception from Harry that his parents didn’t like him and by changing these interactions to give reduced attention to negative behaviour and increased attention to positive behaviours we were able to encourage Harry to shift his behaviour and he started to feel more accepted by the family.

In addition a plan was structured to help parents to engage Harry in school-work at home which helped him to complete his GCSEs and to get the grades he needed to gain access onto a level 3 course at college.

Harry was also able to start to take more responsibility using a moped to get to school and becoming less reliant on his parents.

Key Features

• During the course of MST Harry’s aggression reduced such that there was no incidents of physical aggression and verbal aggression was much less frequent.

• Parents developed strategies to de-escalate Harry’s behaviour and to help him to recognise when he started to become angry and to manage this better.

• His parents then felt confident that their relationship had improved that Harry’s aggression had reduced and that they had strategies to deal with any issues if they did arise.

• Harry was much more happy and content and felt more accepted by his family and in turn they were much less fearful of his behaviours such that they could communicate more effectively with him and no longer feel they had to ‘walk on egg-shells’.

• Harry has been followed up now 6 months after the case closed and things remain positive and Harry remains at home and in school.  He even went back to his old school to talk to the year 11 pupils to encourage them to work hard for there exams.  This resulted in a letter of thanks to his parents from his old Head Teacher.