Support from the Start

Music and emotional literacy

wrays2 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:35:13 +0000

Musician David Trouton gave a presentation at the Learning. Emotions and Well being in-service day last year which centered on work he has been developing in using music linked to story telling to develop emotional literacy.

David had been working with Ross High School and the council’s arts service on a pilot project that showed significant promise.

The evaluation of this pilot can now be accessed on the councils website at:-

http://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=895&pageNumber=4

What is emotional literacy?

I could say that emotional literacy is what lets you understand / recognise / talk about the feelings of the baby monkey in the picture above.

I could also say its what lets us understand and talk about what we feel when we listen to music ( My edubuzz competence fails at music downloads)

A written definition of emotional literacy :-

“Emotional literacy is the ability to understand ourselves and others and to be aware of, understand and to use information about the emotional states of others with competence” (Elizaeth Weare 2004)

The health promoting school website say the following about emotional literacy:-

There is convincing evidence to suggest that developing the social and emotional competence of children and young people leads to improved well-being, self-esteem, pro-social behaviour and higher achievement.

The environments that encourage emotional and social competence are:

an enriched physical environment
an enriched emotional environment.

We now understand that by providing these environments, together with specific training and coaching in personal and social skills, we can enable children and young people to develop emotional maturity far more effectively than we could before. Many schools believe that emotional intelligence can and must be developed because it leads to so many benefits. They are therefore finding ways to explicitly place emotional literacy at the heart of their approach to learning, teaching, achieving, behaviour change and well-being.

Aspects of emotional literacy

The various aspects of emotional literacy as described by Katherine Weare in her book ‘Developing the Emotionally Literate School’ are outlined here.

Self-understanding:

having an accurate and positive view of ourselves
having a sense of optimism about the world and ourselves
having a coherent and continuous life story.

Understanding and managing emotions:

experiencing the whole range of emotions
understanding the causes of our emotions
expressing our emotions appropriately
managing our responses to our emotions effectively: for example, managing our anger, controlling our impulses
knowing how to feel good more often and for longer
using information about emotions to plan and solve problems
resilience: processing, and bouncing back from, difficult experiences.

Understanding social situations and making relationships:

forming attachments to other people
experiencing empathy for others
communicating with others and responding effectively
managing our relationships effectively
being autonomous, independent and self-reliant.

The above strikes a strong resonance with Dr Harry Burns recent summary of what creates the conditions for positive health outcomes in human beings, particularly in the early years of life. (based on the work of social researcher Aaron Antonovsky and the body of biological research that has identified how the body and brain responds to chronic stress)

To be healthy he argues we need to have an environment that is :

comprehensible
manageable
meaningful.

In other words we need to be able to make sense of our personal worlds, have some sense that we are in control and to be able to value our experience of the world.

We are social animals and have to be able to make sense of (comprehend) those that are in our lives. We also need to be able to deal with disputes, negotiate help when we need it and generally get on with other people (manageable). Finally we need to be loved or at least valued by the people in our lives (meaningful). If we don’t learn the skills need for this we can literally be lost in a world that has little meaning, seems beyond our ability to influence and is difficult to understand. In other words a place that is either frightening, dangerous or both.

Reflecting on my own childhood experiences understanding, managing and valuing emotions and relationships was not something that was addressed verbally and I can’t recall emotions or relationship being talked about in a classroom context. Having said that I always felt loved (if not understood) by my family, valued by my friends and their was a lot of emotional expression (not all of it very literate) So no doubt whatever degree of emotional literacy I developed I learnt, in large part, experientially and through role models.

I understand that I was lucky to be in a relatively stable and loving family situation, and I am sure I absorbed a lot of emotional awareness if not literacy from that environment. However, I think other strands of my learning were less dependant on family and these were stories, music and sport. For a boy growing up mostly in the north east of England participation in football (mostly in the street - that how old I am) was both an experience that allowed me to feel a wide range of emotion but it provided a medium and language to talk about those experiences to my peers. The experience of Success/ failure - elation / disapointment - rage/pride were daily occurrences and you can’t be emotionally aware / literate if you are not in an environment that offers you emotional experience. So for me learning about emotions had a lot to do with the physical environment that I could access. In the present its not unknown for my wife to accuse me of being selfish, and for me the emotional content and understanding of that word is still tied up with the feelings that went along with boys that refused to pass the ball.

I come from a large family and dealing with strong emotions often meant not being in the same physical space as annoying brothers, which meant being outside. Today being outside preferably amongst or close to trees has a pretty much instantaneous effect of calming me.

Exposure to reading and stories was probably another way that I learnt about emotions - when we put ourselves in the place of a character in a novel we learn about their feelings and our reaction to them. My first independent reading experience was the Victor comic book - even that which is not known for its emotional range gave me a vicarious access to the emotions of others and the words that describe them. Television was another way that I accessed stories - and stories where the emotional nuances were accented and defined by music. My environment was not music rich (apart from a couple of Elvis Presley LPs) and television was really how I experienced music. Some words / stories for me have emotional connotations that are intimately connected to the music of television programmes. If I hear the word holocaust the theme music of a t.v. programme called The World at War leaps straight into my mind followed by the mixture of horror, disbelief and anger that that I felt as I was first exposed to the image of a bulldozer pushing skeletal human bodies into a mass grave.

The experiences available to us in our in our physical environment have emotional contexts and therefore learning opportunities - its not all about words. Too much emphasis on words and intellectual understanding of emotions for me easily slides into therapy, and that can be dangerous if you don’t know what your doing. ( Carol Craig of the centre for confidence and well being I think has made a similar point).

Thats what I like about the use of music for developing emotional literacy - it connects the internal to the external world as does sport and being in a natural environment. For children that don’t have the benefit of stable or perhaps even caring families maybe the learning value of the emotional environments outwith the home become even more valuable. That would make access to those environments and the right learning experiences a powerful tool. - Do we use music to learn about emotion, do we use sport to learn about emotions, do we use the outdoor environment to learn about emotion?

Curricullum for excellence - perhaps it start with the question - What does that feel like?

Champions Get Together

pmclaren — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:41:51 +0000

Just before xmas the Service and Community champions met to review how the test site had developed over the last year. The first part of the session was an informal chance to catch up with each other and review the year using a timeline. The timeline showed key activities since the test site was announced and champions were asked to record their impression with sticky post its.

Below are photographs of the Support from the Start Storyboard which was displayed at the Champions Get Together, held on Monday 21st December 2009 in John Muir House Haddington. Th notes from the discussion are linked get-together-group-discussion-notes

This event was a good opportunity for the Service Champions and Community Champions to meet each other, the Project Board members and East Lothian council Chief Executive Alan Blackie was in attendance. It was a fun event with relaxation and culminated in a facilitated group discussion looking at future priorities.

The storyboard is a timeline for the test site from initiation in October 2008 to the time of the Get Together in December 2009, which details major events and deliverables from the project and lists the outcomes driving the project forward. There is also a list of the Service Development Fund proposals and many of the activities which have taken place. The Champions were encouraged to add their thoughts to the storyboard of what inspired them/disappointed them and what have been the achievements or barriers. These thoughts are also listed here.

Champions Thoughts

Breast feeding friendly school

wrays2 — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:50:55 +0000

Sanderson’s Wynd primary school in Tranent became the first school in East Lothian to receive a Breast feeding friendly award. The award was presented to Candy Inglis Depute head at Sanderson’s Wynd by Barbara Purdie of the National Childbirth Trust and Shauna Powers a health promotion specialist who has been developing the award locally. The presentation took place at Sanderson Wynd early years centre where the NCT was holding an open day to showcase it services, and try and find out what people in Tranent thought of what it offers.

The award is a local development that recognises public premises that adopt a supportive attitude to breast feeding mums and have policy and procedures that demonstrate this. Since the award was launched over 50 premises in East Lothian have been granted it from a nail and beauty salon in Tranent to libraries and a bed breakfast in Dunbar.

Shauna Powers, a health promotion specialist working with Support from the Start, is leading the way in redeveloping and extending the scope of the the award. Shauna has also been working with key agencies and services to review what currently contributes to supporting women to choose breastfeeding and continue with it. We hope this service mapping process will help us to identify ways in which services can build on and improve what they are already doing to increase the breast feeding rates in the target communities for Support from the Start. Tranent for example has a breast feeding rate at six weeks after birth that is almost 20% less than the average for East Lothian and half that of some other communities.

Why is breast feeding important?

Although it is every woman’s right to choose how to feed her baby there are many health benefits to mother and baby from choosing breastfeeding including:

Breastfed babies have less risk of:
stomach upset
ear infections
chest infections
childhood diabetes
asthma, eczema, allergies.

Mothers who breastfeed have less risk of:
pre-menopausal breast cancer
ovarian cancer

I hope lots more schoosl in the test site area, but also outwith the area, follow Sanderson’s Wynd lead and become ’breastfeeding friendly’.

However, schools can take thngs a step further by actively promoting breastfeeding within their communities.

Breastfeeding is now included as an outcome in the Curriculum for Excellence

I am beginning to understand that nutritional needs change at different stages of life, for example the role of breastfeeding in infant nutrition.

HWB 1-32a

And could be linked to :-

Together we enjoy handling, tasting, talking and learning about different foods, discovering ways in which eating and drinking may help us to grow and keep healthy.

HWB 0-30a

Support rom the Start is looking to work in partnership with one on or more nurseries / primary schools in the test site area to explore how this outcome is delivered and how schools and nurseries can more actively promote breast feeding as a choice for women in their communities. The local branch of the National Childbirth trust will be an active part of this.

Play @ Home training rolled out in East Lothian

pmclaren — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:31:01 +0000

Play@Home is a programme designed to encourage parents and carers to help the development of children from birth to five years through the use of exercise and physical activity, and to educate parents in ways of handling and exercising their children.

Free 2 hour training sessions were provided for Childcare Practitioners to become trainers for the play@home programme. This equipped them to work with parents to provide the foundation for a physically active life.

The programme concentrates on birth to age 1 and the trainees were provided with a pack to enable onward training.

The first 4 sessions took place on Thursday 15th October 2009 attended by 35 people and the second 4 were on Wednesday 2nd December 2009 attended by 28 people.

Here is some of the feedback on the training.

Feedback

Doula

pmclaren — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:18:31 +0000

A Doula” (pronounced “doola”) is a Greek word meaning “woman servant or caregiver”. It now refers to a trained and experienced person who accompanies a woman through pregnancy and childbirth and the first few weeks of family life.

The development of Doula’s has been associated with people who could afford to pay for a private service - but services have developed in England that provide volunteer Doula’s to women from a variety of backgrounds. The results sound impressive

84% breastfeeding initiation rate
55% breastfeeding rate at 6 weeks
18% caesarean section rate

A Volunteer Doula Project this link will give you details of a Civic Conversation event being held in Musselburgh in February, entitled ‘A Volunteer Doula Project: Could it work here?’ You will here the manager of the Goodwin volunteer Doula project based in Hull talk about her experience, and have an opportunity for discussion following the presentation.

Some research links

Continuous support for women during childbirth (review)

Social support by doulas during labour and the early postpartnum period

A chicago based young mother project

Talking Time

wrays2 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:31:15 +0000

Talking Time is a new project in East Lothian Nurseries provided by Speech and language services.

Eleven nurseries were contacted in September 2009 with a new opportunity funded by the Fairer Scotland Fund—to receive training and resources from Speech and Language Therapy to run their own early language groups.

A newsletter has been been produced and is available here newsletter-pdf-version Contact details for more information are in the newletter.

National Early Years Network

wrays2 — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:39:49 +0000

NHS Health Scotland is the national health improvement agency for the NHS and they have established an early years network which co-ordinates learning events and the following are links to event coming up in 2010. You will also find details of how to join this network and recieve their email bulletins direct below.

Early Years National Conference 4 February, Edinburgh Conference Centre, Heriot Watt

The re run of the national Early Years conference will be held on the 4 February, registration is now open. There will be video conferencing for the presentations. If you would like to use the video conferencing I would be grateful if you could reply to laura.martin@health.scot.nhs.uk by the 15 January.

Children and Young People Evidence Alert

Please follow the link for the December evidence alert http://www.healthscotland.com/documents/3917.aspx

The Best Possible Start: A Maternity Services Conference, Tuesday 4 May 2010

See flyer attached.

The full agenda for the conference will be available by early 2010. to receive the programme and application form email maternityconference@shscevents.co.uk

Early Child Development: A Powerful Equaliser 21 January 2010 6pm Surgeons’ Hall, The Symposium Hall, Nicolson Street Edinburgh EH8 9DW

See flyer attached

Dr Clyde Hertzman is Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), College for Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC; Tier I Canada Research Chair in Population Health and Human Development; and Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC. Under Dr Hertzman’s leadership, HELP (est 2001) has developed into an internationally recognised and unique research network that integrates the behavioural and social sciences with biomedical sciences to study life course development, with a particular focus on early child development.

If you know of any colleagues who would be interested in joining the network please ask them to email their details to laura.martin@health.scot.nhs.uk

Maternity Services conference

scphrp_clyde_hertzman_poster

Public Health Report

pmclaren — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:30:49 +0000

Chief medical officer launches annual public health report at First Step community project in Musselburgh

The chief medical Officer came to First step community project in East Lothian to launch his annual public health report. This years report has a focus on the importance of early years to good health and Dr Burns was keen to launch the report in an early years facility in the the east Lothian equally well test site area.

Dr Burns read a story to children attending the facility and talked with parents and grandparents about the contents of the report and his views about how health inequality can be addressed.

Here is the Chief Medical Officer - Dr Harry Burns’ Annual Public Health Report

And the slides of his presntation can be viewed here

ann_report2008pres1

Evaluation - why, what for and who for?

wrays2 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:39:26 +0000

To evaluate is to measure or estimate the nature, quality, ability, extent, significance of or to form a critical opinion of

Synonoms: weigh up, rank, assess, estimate, appraise

The evaluation process considers impact, through observation, collecting quantitative and qualitative data, focus groups, questionnaires, documentation review and utilising other evaluation tools and processes. Formative evaluation will also consider added value, partnership (as appropriate), the development process and the extent to which original aims and objectives have been met or revised.

Jane Field

The most valuable piece of advice about ‘evaluation’ that I have ever had was from a New Zealand based researcher who gave a presentation at an evaluation summer school I attended in 2006 (apologies but her name has gone from my memory). The advice was that the first question one should always ask is, ‘Why am I doing this evaluation?’; and this should be followed by what and who is it for before you get anywhere near the how question.

I think the why, what for and who for questions are particularly important because so often evaluation is an externally imposed condition: ‘Thou shalt evaluate’ has been one of the commandments of health improvement (particularly for community based work) at least since the 1990s. Funding for project work became increasingly dependant on the ‘How will you evaluate?’ question.

I believe many of us are tempted to skip past the why am I, or we, doing this evaluation, straight to how am I / we going to evaluate this work because it became a given, a must do. When the why question is not asked, (and why bother asking if it is a given) evaluation can easily become degraded to a process of self justification, or a sometimes pointless counting of outputs. There’s nothing wrong with self justification - its vital in a world of limited resources - but its not the process of open, honest, and organised critical reflection which creates the learning of the evaluation process. Maybe the real importance of the questions - ’why am I doing this’, ‘who is it for’, and ‘what does it aim to achieve’ - is that they lay bare our motivations as evaluators.

When funders project commissioners don’t make explicit why they want want evaluation, who its for, and what they are going to do with it, it can have significant consequences. Countless thousands of ‘evaluation’ reports or products have been produced on initiatives and projects the length and breadth of the country that have simply disappeared. If nobody is asking why do we want evaluation, what we will we do with it once we have got it, and who is intended for then it should be no surprise that much of the product of evaluation is unused and neglected, nor that those that are tasked with ’evaluating’ their own work become cynical and disillusioned with ‘evaluation’.

I think many professonal evaluators also make the mistake of focusing on method without asking why and what for. It can seem that some evaluators are trained to look down their noses at less formal methods of appraising, weighing up, estimating the worth or forming opinions on a programme or project.

So why do we want to evaluate Support from the Start, the East Lothian Equally Well test site.

My answer has two parts, firstly, because we want to be able to understand and explain with the most confidence we can manage, what we have done, why we we did it that way and what we think have have been the positives and negatives of what we have done. Secondly we want to be able to monitor progress towards the outcomes we have established for the test site. What we want from the evaluation is reliable means of explaining / understanding what we have done and what the impact of that has been. Who is it for - in no particular order the ministerial taskforce, the community planning partnership and partners agencies and the communities that are the target for the test site. So what we want to do is assess the change process within the test site and use that as evidence to a range of local and national audiences that the approach we have taken has produced service change.

Note that i have not mentioned anything about measuring change in health inequalities, although we may well try to do this for specific initiatives. I have said from the start that the timescale of the test site is far to short to measure changes in health inequalities. Also I have grave doubts that quantitative methods can be applied across a complex and dynamic service environment with any confidence that you can attribute change to one service change or another.

Using storytelling as one of the hows or methods for evaluation has lots of attractions for me, but I acknowledge that it is looked upon as being unscientific, unreliable too simplistic.

What can storytelling offer us as an evaluation tool :-

tapping into knowledge that practitioners gain through reflection on their own experiences;
providing an environment that enables people to tell their stories;
helping practitioners to share their practice knowledge with one another more effectively;
creating more generalised knowledge about practice, from practice, for practice;
incorporating practice knowledge in project evaluation.

And reading the output might be far more interesting and engaging than tables describing enumerated outputs.

Storytelling could help us evaluate at the same time as involving service providers and community member in the process of change that we are trying to generate. If we can get people to trust that we want to hear their stories and are systematic in listening and recording their stories then as an evaluation process it will have as much validity as ‘focus groups’ or questionnaires. Combined with identifying appropriate indicators linked to service pathways for the medium term outcomes for the test site I think this is the best we can both assess / evaluate change and the change process.

Action Learning

pmclaren — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:39:47 +0000

Action learning is a key part of the test site bringing together champions from accross services to reflect and review practise and discuss how to make servcies more effective at tackling health inequality

Here is the output from the workshops held on Monday, 23rd November 2009.

Session 4 - Sets 1 & 2

Session 4 - Sets 3 & 4