Behaviour support service?

[User4873444]

My son is being referred to the behaviour support service due to his anxiety. He doesn’t have any behavioural issues in school. Has anyone else got a child who’s seen BSS for emotional rather than behavioural issues?

Anxiety is a behavioural issue. Behaviour doesn't only mean behaving badly (naughty if you like).

I think that’s a bit pedantic and not particularly helpful. When teachers talk about behavioural issues they generally mean challenging behaviour. I have only known BSS to work with children with challenging behaviour, but that’s the field I work in. Has anyone had any experience of BSS working with a child for anxiety and if so what did they do?

I don’t know personally about behaviour support (I’ve not heard of it), but I agree that some coping strategies which would benefit a very anxious child could be used to help negative behaviour too.

DD gets to go to the “nurture room” at school, she’s autistic and extremely anxious and they identified pretty quickly that she’d benefit from that. It’s technically learning support, although she doesn’t struggle academically, she does struggle with large groups and lots of noise.

So aye, behavioural support does sound negative, but it could be that they’re using it as a way to help rather than condemn?

Weekly short sessions with a counsellor in school time., age appropriate discussions and activities to equip them with the skills for self reflection and to combat the anxiety. It helps to build resilience. That’s my experience - not all schools will have the inclination or budget to offer this, so it’s good that your school has recognised a need and is being proactive.

Behaviours in school are not necessarily just those that are challenging in terms of violence, but also any that are detrimental to a child's learning so extreme anxiety would fall inder that. However, I'm sure the remit of behaviour support services will vary from authority to authority ( ours is part of the school exclusion team and works with those at risk of exclusion due to behaviour issues) so it might be hard to generalise. But, as with the previous poster, surely any support is better than none?

Actually I do think it is helpful to point out it is a behavioural issue . My son has anxiety along with Adhd. Anxiety ime can be just as challenging . I find my ds’s anxiety harder to manage than what you classify as challenging behaviour .

That said yes I have seen behavioural services found them useless . Unable to help so was referred to Camhs. It may be better in your area though.

I used to work for the PBS. They do inreach as well as outreach. So a centre to visit, they come to schools, go to your home. I guess depending on the need There are support workers, psychotherapists. It's a pretty good support service actually, I found. Is your son able to access a full school timetable?

"I think that’s a bit pedantic and not particularly helpful. When teachers talk about behavioural issues they generally mean challenging behaviour. " it was meant to be reassuring. An anxious child's behaviour can be just as challenging as a child who behaves badly in fact more so. Teachers see all kinds of behaviour in the classroom and issues arise when they impact on the child's wellbeing.

And anxiety can later manifest itself into very challenging behaviour.

I think a lot of challenging behaviour also has it's route in anxiety so the way it is treated is often very similar (remember the behaviour is a symptom rather than the illness to be cured). They tend to work with the child to challenge negative thought patterns, increase resilience, recognise triggers and how to handle them, ask for help when needed, talk about issues rather than bottling it up etc.

Our DS is 9 and quite an anxious child although you wouldn't always know it. If he's worried by something at school and it is is on his mind he will bottle it up and his behaviour goes downhill once at home. We want to address this to help him but who first to go to, the GP or the school? His triggers can be someone saying something unkind, not doing a task correctly or something simple like losing his lunch box. Poor thing gets so angry and just needs a hug but he really does struggle to cope.

Thanks for all the responses. I’m not opposed to the referral at all. I’ll take all the help we can get! Just curious what they will actually do with him and what others’ experiences of this have been.
Sorry NorestforMrz my other post was rude. I’m a bit stressed about it all.
Sunshine my son is very similar in that he’s much worse at home than at school. I’d go and talk to School. Ours have been very helpful.

I worked a Behaviour Support Teacher and did work with children who were anxious on occasion. Usually it was in terms of setting up strategies such as Circle Time or Circle of Friends, designed to support children who are anxious and possibly vulnerable in school.

I’ve no idea whether this type of approach is still used though. It was some years ago.

My DS1's school have just referred him for counselling for his anxiety. I'm hopeful it will help as he has a hair trigger temper, an overdeveloped sense of fairness and a deep desire to always know what is going on with everything. Not a great recipe for a calm and happy learning environment in his head and I can imagine that secondary school will be much more hard for him. And i do see that how he might react to things in class would cause disruption as it does often at home just trying to have a full conversation or tell off one of my other boys as often he interrupts to find out what is going on and then questions and questions until it pushes me over the edge! as a teacher if he displays some of those behaviours it would be hard to keep the momentum in a lesson.

Hopefully his sessions at school will help. He is going to be getting some CBT and some strategies that will hopefully unlock some of a downward spiral he gets onto. they approached us to offer some help which we've gladly taken in what ever form it comes. i love his school!

I hope it helps him Raaraa my son is Yr 2 so quite young still for any talking therapies.

He is accessing a full timetable but he’s very stressed by the end of the day. He will blow up at home but never does that at school. Like pp, I find that kind of behaviour much easier to deal with than the anxiety.

Hopefully he will get support from them.

From my experience there are a lot of children who behave badly but who have anxiety at the core of it therefore behaviour support tends to zero in on anxiety as part of their support.

DS who is autistic attended behaviour support sessions at junior school but these were very much 1-1and targeted to his needs. He didn’t misbehave in class at all but had (and still has) lots of anxieties.

He behaves differently because he is anxious, it doesn't mean he behaves badly. People need to understand that, they are often confused by the term.

'Learning difficulties' is another term often misunderstood (not sure if that term is still used but was not that long ago). Doesn't mean someone has low intelligence, just means difficulty in learning for whatever reason.

Well, there are all sorts of learning difficulties and emotional and behavioural difficulties are as individual, and important, as any other SEND. It is certainly worth taking the opportunity of help as it has been offered.

Usually specialist teams will have suitable advice to offer but obviously some children need medical intervention and referral to other professionals. That doesn’t mean the behaviour specialists are not any good: it means they inevitably have limits to their expertise and training. Most of these teams are educationalists, not psychiatrists. They advise schools and parents on managing and improving “behaviour” in school so the children can access education.

I hope there is good advice available op.