Recently I have been asked a lot about my passion for supporting all students and what it means in particular to be a Graduate Behaviour Mentor. In this post I will attempt to outline my intentions and hopes with respect to my students by building a picture of what it means to me to be in a position to positively impact outcomes.
A frequently asked question is;
What is the difference between behaviour therapy and behaviour mentoring?
In my opinion the main difference is that;
Behaviour Therapy supports individuals who have formal diagnoses or have experienced trauma.
Behaviour Mentoring supports individuals who have lagging social and emotional skills which result in the exhibiting of challenging behaviour.
I am not a therapist and I am not a counsellor and, I will attempt to address the difference by illustrating who I am and what I do.
I am a Graduate Behaviour Mentor (GBM) who specialises in social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD). If I were to define my role I think that the Cambridge dictionary can help me. Their definition of Life Coach as 'someone who helps clients decide what they want in their life and how to achieve it' describes what I believe can be translated for my own role into: Behaviour Mentor - someone who supports students who exhibit challenging behaviour to take ownership of their behaviour and learn the skills and strategies to improve outcomes.
As a GBM I believe in supporting my students in the moment. My hope is through working together I can enable my students to take ownership of their behaviour, to understand the impact of their behaviour and to learn the necessary skills and strategies to move forward, offering them opportunities for change. In this role I see myself as a 'significant adult' for my students who can work both in a classroom setting or in a 1:1 setting to support their needs in a positive and appropriate way.
I identify the students who are struggling to control their behaviour and who are therefore challenging for their teacher. They could be shouting out, wriggling around (amongst other things) and not focussing on the teaching and learning. Basically I am looking for evidence that they are not accessing the learning or missing out on the opportunity to learn and I want to avoid that their challenging behaviour results in them being excluded. At this point I feel it is pertinent to highlight that not all challenging behaviour is confrontational. Some students have sensory processing issues that need to be supported and others have behavioural challenges related to their personal makeup and exuberant love for life, which can negatively impact their learning. I identify this as the 'hidden need' of my students, which when supported early in their school career can avoid more structured interventions in the future.
Fundamentally, my intentions with behaviour mentoring is to improve outcomes for all students with challenging behaviour. I strive to build positive relationships which I hope will result in growth with respect to student's resilience and confidence. Working together we can approach difficulties sharing experiences and construct a framework for their inclusion in mainstream classrooms and their access to learning.
When I consider how to approach working with students exhibiting challenging behaviour my focus is empathetic. The reason for this is that I believe strongly that no one student wants to behave in a challenging manner, I believe that they just do not have the ability to respond in another way due to their lack of strategies and skills. This can be a very controversial viewpoint if you are a behaviourist. I would like to clarify at this point that I am not a behaviourist as they believe in 'prediction and control' (This is a larger discussion which is not appropriate in my short post) but if you want to read more Saud McLeod (2017) summarises it in the following link.
So I think I have explained my intentions and hopes to clarify why I do what I do as GBM...
If you have another understanding please comment and if you agree then like and share.
Comments