Relational Practice: New Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools

Sahaja Timothy Davis, Tom Billington, Mary Chilokoa, Claire-Marie Whiting

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781040121269
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A clear and compelling text written by teachers, psychologists, and educationalists, Relational Practice: New Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools proposes a dynamic and relational approach to supporting the mental health needs of children and young people within education. Contributing authors advocate a movement away from the deficit, medicalised model of mental health and instead encourage readers to embrace a relational approach, considering philosophical and spiritual dimensions, as well as the wider everyday contexts that shape the mental health of individuals, groups, and school communities.

Filled with case studies, intervention strategies, and CPD activities, this essential guide bridges the gap between theory, research, and practice to offer evidence-based resources for practical application within schools.

Areas covered include, but are not limited to:

• Supporting neurodivergent and LGBT+ students to thrive
• Creating and actioning an anti-racist approach
• Multi-agency interventions
• Relationships in SEND settings
• Creating a supportive culture to enhance staff wellbeing
• Appreciative inquiry
• Staff perceptions of Building Relational Schools (BRS)
• The role of intersubjective processes and the impact they have on relationships in educational settings

Providing a comprehensive introduction to relational practice within education, this is an indispensable resource for anyone working in education who wishes to support the mental health and wellbeing of their school community.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• 1 Working relationally: A paradigm choice
• 2 Humanising our practice: The radical possibilities of a relational approach
• 3 Psychosocial justice: A matter of ecologics
• 4 An inquiry into the heart of separation, selfhood, connection, and love: The implications of non-duality to relational practice
• 5 ‘I am because we are’: African and Buddhist perspectives on ‘relationship’ and human flourishing
• 6 Personal selves, professional lives: Engaging the ‘self’ in work with families and young people
• 7 ‘There's TRUST there at the heart of it’: Co-creating inclusive cultures in a relational way through the four cornerstones approach
• 8 A reflection on how a relational approach supported an Educational Psychology Service's work on antiracism
• 9 Exploring the relational power of appreciative inquiry: Drawing on previous experiences and diverse perspectives within an Educational Psychology Service to create new ways of working
• 10 What works to create a supportive relational culture that enhances staff wellbeing?: An appreciative exploration of the organisational factors that enhance the wellbeing of staff working in a special education school
• 11 ‘It's all about relationships’: Staff perceptions of Building Relational Schools (BRS)
• 12 Children in care proceedings: Trauma, commitment, and relational practice in schools
• 13 Supporting neurodiverse LGBTQ+ students to thrive
• 14 Emerging adulthood and working with uncertainty: A multi-agency perspective
• 15 REFLECT: A collaborative and reflective relational approach that empowers adults to better understand and nurture, and children and young people to flourish
• 16 The role of intersubjective processes and the impact they have on relationships in educational settings
• 17 Special time: An intervention to support the building of teacher-pupil relationships to promote belonging, trust, and development of positive attachments with school staff
• 18 Beads of life for transition to high school: Educational and child psychologists’ retelling their embodied narrative practice with young people, staff, and families
• 19 Winnicott: (Chinese) parents at play and relational being
• 20 Final thoughts from our authors
• Index