Working With Children Who Self harm

Foster Care Training

Self-harm is an umbrella term for an action which is done by someone intentionally to damage or hurt themself. Self-harm is a sensitive topic to discuss. However, with one in ten young people self-harming between the ages of 14 and 16, it is an important topic within foster care training. Young people who self-harm are excellent at hiding their distress. This means that foster carers may struggle to realise there is a problem.

Firstly, participants will learn why some young people self-harm and the different ways they may harm themselves. Thus, having a knowledge of the psychological reasons behind some harming themselves allows parents to identify and support those who self-harm. Of course, when foster carers and support workers are confronted with a young person who deliberately harms her/himself this can lead them to feel a strong sense of failure and helplessness. Therefore, we aim to prepare participants for any feelings that they may experience when faced with such realities, and how these feelings may evolve into something more damaging if they are not confronted.

We will equip participants with the skills to not only support themselves in these situations but also to approach and talk to young people about self-harm. Finally, the course highlights methods of recovery to help young people in these situations. This includes ways to open discussions with children who self-harm and also ideas for substitutes which are significantly less damaging.

• Standard 1; 1.(1,2,3,4)
• Standard 2: 2.(1,2,4)
• Standard 3: 3.(1,2,3,4,5)
• Standard 4: 4. (1,2,4,5)
• Standard 5: 5. (1,2,6)
• Standard 6: 6. (1, 2,3,4,5)
• Standard 7: 7.(1,2,3,4,5)