What Newbold Hope Can Offer Parents

Training

About our training

Lived experience informs everything that we do at Newbold Hope. We are uniquely positioned to deliver robust training that is rooted in real-life and informed by the very real needs of this group of children, young people and their families. We have unrivalled experience in being able to share practical strategies that have already been proven to work with countless other families.

We have an impressive record of success. We know now of several thousands of families who have used our strategies to significantly reduce or completely eradicate difficult and dangerous behaviour in their children.

Families report how these reductions in extreme behaviours are across all three of measurable metrics:

• Intensity
• duration
• frequency

 

As a result, parents tell us how much happier, calmer, and more engaging their child is now. For many parents, for the first time in years, they are now able to look ahead towards their child’s future adulthood with real hope of a promising life ahead.

Evaluations from people attending Newbold Hope online training sessions are consistently positive, and indicate that: -

The helpfulness of the sessions is rated as 9.6 out of 10.

97% of parents attending report that they feel more confident in their parenting skills.

99% of parents would recommend the sessions to other families

 What Parents Have Said

 

Our training sessions

We offer training sessions in person and online with a choice of 17 different topics all related to the needs of SEND families whose children have episodes of difficult or dangerous behaviour. Most of these sessions are organised by local parent-support groups, However, Yvonne also does some sessions which are open to the public for a small charge. When this happens, more information is available from our website, or via our mailing list.

 

Our pre-recorded sessions

10 of these sessions have been pre-recorded and a four-week access to each of them can be purchased for £8.50.

 

This is the full list of all 17 topics, with the first 10 also available as pre-recorded sessions to buy.

How to reduce extreme behaviour in SEND children and young people - Buy the Recording

This is a great starting point and will give you a broad overview of how to help your child to become happier and calmer.

Some of the issues covered in this webinar are –

• Sensory Issues
• Communication
• Routines
• Resistance to change.
• Transitions
• Processing speed
• Theory of Mind
• Masking
• Why it is important to move away from traditional parenting strategies.
• Why it is not your fault, or your child’s fault.
• Looking at how judgement and blame from others affects parents and why your child’s behaviour is not your fault.
• The importance of self-care in parents

 

During the session there is a strong focus on solutions, strategies, approaches and the importance of thinking differently.

BUY NOW! How to Reduce Extreme Behaviour in SEND Children and Young People

 

Understanding how anxiety affects you and your child and how to reduce it – Buy the Recording

This will give you a greater understanding of what anxiety is, how to recognise it, and why it's nearly always the underlying cause of your child's most difficult and dangerous behaviours.

During this session, we will be looking anxiety, what it is, why it happens, what it feels like and how it affects you and how it affects your child. We’ll explore the link between anxiety and extreme behaviour issues, as well as the link between anxiety and additional needs.  The whole two hours are packed full of ideas, suggestions, and strategies that you can use to help to lower anxiety levels in your family, and it finishes with over 50 “top tips” that can give you an instant boost when anxiety levels are running particularly high.

Here are just some of the areas we will be covering –

• What is anxiety?
• Common anxieties in adults
• Common anxieties in children with additional needs
• Common anxieties parents can have about their child with additional needs.
• How anxiety affects us both physically and mentally
• Common anxiety symptoms and how to recognise them in both yourself and your child.
• Physiological changes that happen due to anxiety
• What happens to our autonomic nervous system?
• What anxiety can feel like
• The difficulties of getting help support and understanding when anxiety is invisible.
• How it can affect behaviour, sometimes leading to violence, property destruction, offensive language, becoming controlling, avoiding any demands, and including violence
• Why anxiety happens.
• How you can lower anxiety levels in both you and your child

Joining this session will give you a much greater understanding of why anxiety can have such a significant impact on you, your child and on your family life, and you will have a toolbox full of practical and easy strategies to make life easier on everyone.

BUY NOW! Understanding How Anxiety Affects You and Your Child, and How to Reduce it

 

How to keep brothers and sisters safe and happy – Buy the Recording

This session will give you the toolbox you need to help with sibling conflicts and with helping all your children to feel safer, happier, valued and loved.

This session gives parents a chance to step back and look at their own family dynamic and examine what works well and what works less well. During the two hours, the webinar covers sibling rivalry, conflict, communication, resentments, feelings of unfairness, parental guilt and worry and how this can influence a parent’s ability to handle situations as they arise, and possible emerging mental health concerns in children. It is packed full of strategies to encourage better relationships between brothers and sisters, regardless of any additional needs. It also looks at how to prioritise safety which includes how to design a safety plan, how to explain about a child’s additional needs to the other children in the family and how to ensure that every child knows that they are valued, loved, and treated fairly. This session is extremely popular with parents who often carry significant levels of fear and stress about the effect of difficult behaviours on their other children, and they leave with practical and doable strategies that they can try straight away.

BUY NOW! How to Keep Brothers and Sisters Safe and Happy

 

How to reduce controlling behaviour in SEND children and young people – Buy the Recording Now

This session can help you gain the confidence and skills to understand why your child has developed controlling behaviour, and how to help them to relinquish this level of control.

Children who use controlling behaviour with their families is a common issue that affects a large proportion of SEND families coping with other forms of extreme behaviour. It is a very stigmatising issue, which is very emotional and shrouded in secrecy and shame. It is very seldom discussed, and one of the strengths of this webinar is how validated people feel when they realise that they are not alone, and that this topic is being discussed openly. This session looks at the underlying reasons for this controlling behaviour, and how parents can regain control and get their family back on track.

The webinar starts by looking at: –

• What is control?
• What it can look like in children
• Why it happens.
• How it makes you, the parent, feel
• How other people can make you feel about it
• How to get your child back on track.

 

 The webinar moves on to look at the children that this affects, and how it is caused almost always by anxiety, and why anxiety has almost the exact opposite meaning as feeling safe, which is what every child (and adult) craves. The two-hours is packed full of strategies about how to help your child feel safe enough to relinquish overall household control, and how to re-establish the parent as being in charge.

Parents leave the webinar feeling relieved and full of hope over a situation that they most likely have kept incredibly quiet about due to shame for a very long period of time.

BUY NOW! How to Reduce Controlling Behaviour in SEND Children and Young People

 

How to stop the guilt, worry & self-doubt of being a SEND parent from hurting - Buy the Recording

When a child behaves in ways that can be extremely difficult or dangerous, even if that child has a disability or additional needs, it’s very common that parents are judged, blamed and criticised for either “causing” or “allowing” the behaviours to continue. If only it were that simple!

Extreme behaviour in SEND children is a very complex issue and it’s nearly always caused by very high levels of anxiety, not because of any lack of skills in a parent.

Yet the repeated parent-blame can be so harmful, causing significantly and long-term damage a parent’s self-esteem, self-confidence and their overall mental well-being. This group of parents need help, support and understanding, yet instead they can become judged, blamed, shunned and isolated.

I was once that parent and I know first-hand how hard it was. When you are told often enough that it must be all your fault, eventually you start believing it too which destroys self-belief, self-worth and causes very real mental health issues. At the very time you need to be the best and most responsive parent that you can be to support your child past their extreme behaviour episodes, you are often left feeling guilty, broken and believing that you’re failing as a family.

This session is about unpicking all of this, looking at why other people find behaviour issues so difficult to understand and what you can do to help, as well as how to protect yourself from being affected by all the negativity that often gets so unfairly directed at you.

Topics covered include –

• Why your own emotional health matters
• Parent-blame and judgement – why it happens
• How it affects you and what you can do to protect yourself
• Identifying your own psychological needs and how to get them met
• How to manage the very difficult feelings of things like
• Shame
• Anger
• Humiliation
• Fear of failing
• Judgement
• Worry
• Embarrassment
• Feeling that you’re “not enough”
• How to manage relationships more positivity with
• Your co-parent
• Extended family
• Professional staff working with your child
• How to increase your chances of being heard and understood
• Why your own self-esteem and anxiety levels matter
• How to be kind to yourself

The whole session is packed full of practical suggestions and strategies that you can try straight away

BUY NOW! How to Stop Hurting from all the Guilt, Worry and Self-doubt of Being a SEND Parent

 

How to help a demand-avoidant SEND child feel happier and calmer – Buy the Recording

This session will give you a much greater understanding of why your child avoids demands and what you can do to help them to feel happier and safer in the world around them.

This session looks at why children who are very anxious can also become markedly demand avoidant, and how you can support these children to cope better with everyday life.

 

We start by looking at: –

• What does “demand avoidant” mean?
• Why, if a child avoids demands, it does not necessarily mean that they would always meet the criteria for a diagnosis of autism with demand-avoidance traits, or of Pathological Demand Avoidance, which is commonly abbreviated to PDA.
• Why children sometimes become demand avoidant.
• The link between demand avoidance and anxiety
• How to identify and address the underlying causes of this anxiety
• Effective strategies that can help are shared from the very start and all the way through.

 

 This webinar explores in depth some of the possible underlying reasons behind the anxiety that is likely to be causing any demand avoidance, and what a parent can do to minimise this anxiety by addressing the root cause. We also discuss how lowering demands can be helpful as a short-term strategy, but it is seldom the whole answer, and long-term it becomes unrealistic and unsustainable.

We look at some common difficulties such as school refusal or bedtime refusal, masking, and how demand avoidant behaviour can sometimes tip over into controlling behaviour. We look at how to use visuals to aid understanding and communication when emotions are heightened, and the importance of giving a child far more time than seems necessary to allow them to process information.

We also look at why praise can be difficult for children whose anxiety levels have become so extreme that they are using demand avoidant behaviour to cope with daily life. Plus loads more.

Parents leave this workshop feeling lighter, more hopeful, and optimistic, less alone, and with a fresh approach towards supporting their child.

BUY NOW! How to Support a SEND Child with Demand Avoidant Behaviour to Feel Happier and Calmer

How to boost your SEND child’s self-esteem – Buy the Recording

Did you know that self-esteem is an accurate indicator of success or failure in every aspect of life? Yet chances are that if your child has developed difficult and dangerous behaviour, their self-esteem, as well as the self-esteem of their brothers and sisters, is likely to be in their boots. This session will share the skills you need to help your children to feel better about themselves.

Self-esteem is all about how we think about ourselves and value ourselves. It drives the decisions and choices we make, which in turn influence how we live our lives. This means that self-esteem can determine how successful we are, the quality of our relationships and our academic and career achievements. Left unchecked, it can lead to depression, anxiety, and several other medical conditions. Parents leave the session with a better understanding of why SEND children often have lower self-esteem, together with the skills and several dozen strategies that they can get started on immediately to work with their child to help them to feel much better about themselves.

BUY NOW! How to Boost your SEND Child’s Self-Esteem

 

How to boost communication skills with young people – Buy the Recording Now

So often, it's the unnoticed misunderstandings and miscommunications that can escalate behaviour in the blink of an eye. This session will help you identify and resolve communication issues in your family.

When there have been difficult behaviours present for a number of years, often the child-parent relationship inevitably suffers as a result, which means that the lines of communication are significantly reduced and any attempt to communicate may result in defensiveness or aggression. This webinar is full of tips, tricks, and strategies to re-establish connection with your child through communication. It also explores the most common communication impairments in children with additional needs and how to identify if and where your child may be struggling to communicate.

Among other things, this webinar will cover: –

• The differences between expressive and receptive communication and how they are quite different skills.
• 10 different methods of communication that we nearly all use
• How all behaviour is a form of communication
• How communication issues can lead to behavioural episodes and how to counter them
• Common communication issues in SEND children and how to address them.
• Rigid thinking and inflexibility, the problems this can cause and how to overcome them.
• The importance of regulating our own tone of voice and how to do that even when emotions are becoming heightened.
• Why “no” can be a trigger word and what to say instead.
• Why talking about feelings is so hard for children and what to talk about instead.
• Alexithymia
• And lots more

Throughout there are tips, tricks and strategies that can all be put into practice straight away. You will leave this webinar feeling more confident about being able to identify and support your child’s communication needs, with the skills and tools you need to build towards establishing a better quality of communication with your child and your whole family.

BUY NOW! How to Boost Communication Skills with Young People

How to rock important SEND meetings to get the best possible outcomes for your child – Buy the Recording

Have you ever gone to a meeting about your child and felt unheard, disbelieved, and marginalised? Have you ever felt unable to speak up because you don't trust yourself not to cry or lose your temper? This session is exactly what you need! 

What is this webinar about? - If you would like to be able to speak up more confidently in meetings about your child’s needs in a way that will influence outcomes, this is exactly the Workshop you need.

Why meetings can be so hard for parents? - When a child has an additional need, parents often feel that important decisions are taken out of their hands. When this happens, families often have genuine concerns about their child’s needs not being met. Additionally, when a child’s needs are not always visible and cause behavioural issues, parents often feel judged and blamed. That means that you can feel wrong-footed before the meeting has even begun. Add in the whole cocktail of mixed emotions that any parent is likely to feel when their child’s well-being and future is being discussed, and it is sometimes hard for parents to speak up because they do not want to let the tears flow or for their frustration to sound like anger in their voice.

What we’ll focus on - This Workshop is all about how to counter those misunderstandings and assumptions, and to empower parents to confidently communicate in a more effective and collaborative way, so they can be regarded as an equal and expert member of the team around their child.

 

 

The strategies we will discuss will work equally well across a range of settings and situations including:

• In school meetings
• With service providers
• On the phone
• In writing
• At medical appointments
• During hospital admissions
• In person or online and in large or small meetings

 

Some of the issues we will cover include: -

• How to decide what your child needs you to ask for.
• Planning and Preparation.
• How to communicate more effectively.
• How to be heard clearly, confidently, and assertively.
• How to be regarded as your child’s expert.
• How to work with professional staff in partnership and collaboration to get the best decisions for your child.
• Meeting Dynamics – what else might be going on in the room?
• How to harness your emotions so they have a positive impact on how you successfully advocate
• After the meeting – useful follow-up strategies.

BUY NOW! How to Rock Important Meetings about your Child to get the Best Possible Outcomes for them

 

How to navigate extreme behaviour in the teenage years – Buy the Recording

The teenage years can be scary enough for parents, but when there is difficult and dangerous behaviour as well, things can be really tough for the whole family..

The teenage years can also be very hard for all young people, but particularly so for children with additional needs. This session looks at puberty, mood, risk-taking behaviour, communication, dislike of change, internet safety, teenage withdrawal, and lots of other things, as well as exploring some of the underlying causes for difficulties, and what can be done to counter them.

The session will explore school-based issues, puberty related issues, the changing social expectations and the differences in socialisation that affect teenagers. There is a focus on the importance of parents being able to fill the gaps in understanding, particularly around internet safety and sex education, that some children with a learning disability or autism might not otherwise be able to fully comprehend.

Some of the more difficult issues are also covered such as self-harm, teenage drug or alcohol abuse, the vulnerabilities of some SEND teenagers to exploitation or coercion to take part in criminal activities.

The session is jam-packed from start to finish with easy and doable strategies that could make a huge difference in a parent’s relationship with their teenager, and parents leave feeling more empowered and optimistic about their ability to support their teenager more effectively.

BUY NOW! How to navigate extreme behaviour in the teenage years

 

Barriers to Attendance: How to respond when your child cannot go to school. (No recording available yet)

What do you do when your child or young person becomes distressed at the thought of going to school? What happens when they simply cannot attend? It may be that they can’t face school for a day or so here or there, or they may stop going for weeks or months. What if it doesn’t look like you’ll ever get them back through the school gates? 

This is an issue that is affecting thousands of families all over the country. It's an incredibly emotional issue that’s shrouded in shame, but seldom discussed and often ignored and swept right under the carpet. When it does get talked about, more often than not the parents are blamed and the children may be seen as trouble-making delinquents.

There’s so much more behind the reasons why children and young people may develop an inability to go to school, but most people can’t see the real reasons why. If it happens to your child, chances are you’ll feel lost, out-of-your-depth and as if you are somehow failing as a parent. Yet it’s very seldom a parent’s fault and it’s highly unlikely to be the child’s fault either.

This live online webinar is a joint project between Newbold Hope and Not Fine In School, two parent-led organisations which both support parents when things are extremely difficult due to difficult or dangerous behaviour or with school attendance.  Yvonne Newbold MBE will lead the session which takes a realistic view of what’s really going on, why it’s so poorly understood, and what you can do to support your child in the best way possible. It’s packed with workable strategies and ideas that can really help to make things better.

Here are just some of the topics we’ll be looking at -

• Who are the stakeholders – the important players – when a child can’t attend school?
• How do each group of stakeholders view non-attendance
• What does this mean for children and their families?
• What are parents often told to do?
• The law regarding school non-attendance
• What works and what doesn’t?
• What’s really going on?
• What you can do to help
• How to get other stakeholders onside
• Where to seek help
• How to counter parent-blame
• How to best support your child
• Top tips to get through this.

How to plan a happy Christmas around your SEND child’s needs (No recording available yet)

Christmas can be a very difficult time for children with additional needs and their families.  So many of the things that are considered essential elements of a successful and happy family Christmas can cause huge distress to many SEND children and can even lead to difficult behaviour episodes. However, with some thought and planning around your child’s individual sensory and communication needs, coupled with an understanding of why a child may be unsettled by the changes in routines and change, this session will help you plan a Christmas day that works well for your whole family.

 

How to feel happier and calmer as a SEND parent (No recording available yet)

Parenting is hard, parenting a child with an additional need or a disability is even harder, but parenting a SEND child who also has difficult or dangerous behaviour is on another level altogether. You can’t ever switch off, you’re living with the unpredictability of when the next volatile episode will happen, and all the intense fears of whether anyone will get hurt or if anything will get damaged.

You’re living on the edge all the time, on hyper-alert in the hope of being able to avert the next crisis. On days or weeks where those crises come so thick and fast, you’ll feel so tense, so frightened and so alone. Just when you need people on your side and some real support and understanding, chances are that instead you/re getting blamed and judged for behaviour that isn’t your fault, and isn’yot your child’s fault either.

When things have been this tough for several weeks, months or even years with no let up whatsoever to catch your breath or to process what’s been happening, your health, both mental and physical,  is at risk of deterioration.

When you are the glue that holds everything together, looking after you becomes essential. Yet parents in our community don’t have any time off to spend an hour in a gym, or a week on a beach, so this is session is designed especially for you, passing on some easy, doable and effective pick-me-ups you can do in a couple of minutes here and there, with lots of tips, tricks and strategies to start to feel better about everything. People who feel better find everything else easier to do, including parenting. This is the session that you really need, although you might not realise it until afterwards!

Some of the issues that this session covers include: –

• How to manage guilt and worry
• The effect of shame
• How to reset your inner critical voice so it becomes your best friend.
• The importance of regular self-care
• How to self-care so that it isn’t yet another chore on the to-do list.

 

How to safely manage SEND children’s use of the internet, gaming and devices. (No recording available yet)

When a SEND child’s behaviour is off-the-scale of extreme, often one of the most common behaviour triggers is internet or screen related, and things can often escalate when a child is asked to move onto doing something else. Maybe your child loves gaming, or perhaps they want to watch YouTubers from dawn until dusk, or it might be that social media or something else completely has caught their full attention. Whatever their passion, many children with additional needs can be very resistant to coming off the internet, which can quickly lead to conflict, extreme behaviour or even violent episodes in some families.

This session will look at why the internet and screen time hold such a strong appeal for your child, and we will look at the positives as well as the negatives, as well as how to keep them safe online.

During the session, we will look at lots of the common difficulties that families face with their child’s internet use, as well as sharing dozens of very practical and easy ideas, suggestions and strategies that can make a big difference.

Here are just some of the areas we will be covering –

• Gaming, looking at the most popular games and what their appeal is, as well as looking at in-game purchases, why children want to buy so much and what you can do to limit spending.
• YouTube – we will discuss some of the most popular YouTubers, who they are, what they do, and why your child loves them so much.
• Social Media – the pitfalls and the pluses
• Online social interactions – supporting your child to manage online friendships successfully.
• Internet Safety – and how to communicate risks to your child.
• What your child may be gaining or learning from their internet usage
• The impact of Anxiety and low Self-Esteem on a SEND child and why being online makes them feel safer and happier within themselves.
• Internet addiction – when should you be concerned?
• Packed full of practical strategies, ideas, and suggestions that you can start using straight away.
• Plus, lots more

Sensory processing, its effect on behaviour, and how you can make things easier (No recording available yet)

This webinar will take a look at the importance of each of the eight senses and how tough things can become for a child if they process sensory input differently. We will look at why this can then impact severely on behaviour patterns and how you can identify and address the sensory processing issues and reduce difficult behaviour at the same time. This session will share dozens of ideas, strategies and approaches that you can use straight away to make life easier for your child and family.

 

 

 

The impact of any change or transition on behaviour and how you can help . (No recording available yet)

Many children with additional needs rely heavily on things remaining the same to feel safe and secure in their environment. Some of this group of children are so sensitive to the smallest of changes in routine, or a new transition, that when it happens it can precipitate extreme behaviour episodes. This webinar is designed to enable better understanding of why this can happen, and then to share dozens of ideas, suggestions, approaches and strategies that really work to help a child cope better with unavoidable changes much more easily and calmly.

 

How to make school holidays easier and more fun . (No recording available yet)

The school holidays are supposed to be a time to be together as a family making precious childhood memories and having lots of fun. However, for many families who have a SEND child who can sometimes get so anxious that they behave in dangerous or difficult ways with very extreme behaviour, those long weeks ahead can be filled with apprehension or even dread. 

The focus of this webinar is on parent and child emotional well-being, and it’s full of practical ideas and suggestions that can make family life easier and seem much more doable so that things are happier and calmer for everyone at home. 

Coming Soon – March 2023

The Newbold Hope Parent Learning Platform

Newbold Hope’s Parent Learning Platform is a unique way of getting the help, support, understanding and advice you need, completely at your own pace and in your own time. It’s all online, it’s open 24/7, and it’s been entirely designed and is led by a team of parents who have also experienced extreme behaviours from their own children and young people who have a learning disability, or who are autistic, or both. The team behind this innovative new approach absolutely “get it”.

Once you join our Parent Learning Platform, you can work your way through the training materials in the way which works best for you. In doing so, it will help you to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to support your child or young person in reducing their difficult behaviours and help them move towards much happier times. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Newbold Hope has so far successfully changed the lives of 3,000 families who are now living much calmer and happier lives with a much more hopeful future to look forward to.

We are re-recording our training materials to make them much quicker and easier to access in bite-size chunks of around 5-10 minutes each. Training materials will be delivered in a range of multi-media including video, podcast, text and worksheet formats.

Over a six-month period, you’ll be able to cover all the following topics and more,

• Physical violence towards other people and/or pets
• Controlling behaviour
• Demand-avoidant behaviours
• Self-harm
• Property destruction
• Using inappropriate and offensive language
• How anxiety-led behaviour is caused by distress, confusion, fear and feeling unsafe, not by wilful misconduct .
• How this behaviour is instinctive, and not a “choice”
• An understanding of anxiety, what it is and how it can present in children.
• Sensory Issues.
• Communication
• Routines
• Resistance to change.
• Managing transitions
• Processing speed
• Alexithymia
• Theory of Mind
• Masking
• Self-esteem
• Controlling behaviour
• Demand-avoidant behaviour
• Safety strategies to reduce risk to others.
• How to identify the underlying causes of behaviour.
• Why it is important to move away from traditional disciplinary strategies.
• Why it’s nobody’s fault.
• Understanding the damaging impact of blame and judgement
• The importance of kindness, building trust and connection

But that’s not all!

Joining the Platform will also provide a safe space where you can discuss all of these very difficult issues with other parents who are experiencing very similar difficulties in a moderated forum with no shame, blame or judgement whatsoever. You’ll also be able to benefit from weekly question and answer sessions, occasional expert guest speakers, and lots more besides.

Interested? Join our mailing list to be informed as soon as it opens. Anyone joining during March or April 2023 will become a Founder Member, and be entitled to a reduced membership fee of £15.00 per month for however long you remain a member.

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What Parents Have Said

The Special Parent’s Handbook by Yvonne Newbold - You can buy Yvonne’s book on Amazon, it’s her family story, packed with tips tricks and strategies about how to make things easier for families of children with disabilities and additional needs. Here’s the link to the Amazon page  

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