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As part of my work in an NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), I frequently work with families where self-harm and self-destructive behaviour is present for the young person. This blog looks at how Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) ideas can be used to resist harm, increase safety and increase parent/ carer confidence in maintaining presence in the face of self-harm.

Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children often known as UASC or separated young people have faced and experienced significant trauma, uncertainty, and separation from their families and what they have known. They require an environment that enables them to feel safe, calm, connected, in control and hopeful. This needs a staff team that also feels this. I have been working alongside a supported living agency that provides care to many UASC young people. We wanted to consider a model that met all their emotional needs whilst respecting their journeys, culture and values.

NVR has become a cornerstone of trauma-focused services, addressing challenging behaviours and building resilience (Omer, 2004). It aligns seamlessly with trauma-informed, non-shaming, and relational approaches by prioritising connection, respect, and parental emotional regulation. Moving away from punitive behavioural models, NVR fosters collaboration and understanding, focusing on self-regulation rather than control of others. Its inte  gration has profoundly transformed residential care in Hertfordshire Children’s Services.

By the time a family arrives at a practitioner’s door to consider an NVR intervention (Non-Violent Resistance), more often than not difficult dynamics have grown over an extended period of time until breaking point has been reached. Being faced with highly complex circumstances and the desperation of a family, even an experienced practitioner can at times feel overwhelmed. A wise colleague of mine said the following to me when I shared my fear that I may end up joining parents in their helplessness and sense of erasure:

“When you are a mouse that is trying to shift an elephant, it is good to know which way the elephant is heading anyway”

In all honesty, it took some time for me to consider if this was the right time for me to do the NVR Accreditation Module.
Although I sensed that something was more holding me back and I knew for certain in the core of my being, it wasn’t about the timing.
So, if it wasn’t about being the right time, what was it about, what was my barrier in signing up for something that I truly believe in and have a shared passion for with so many others?

Frequently parents come into ED services feeling overwhelmed by trying to care for their child, who is struggling with a life-threatening illness. Often, simultaneously trying to protect close friends and other family members by concealing the difficulties. This adds a layer of complexity, increases feelings of isolation and compounds stress levels that are already high.

Fear of making things worse – of exacerbating the ED or losing their relationship with their child (or both) can lead to a paralysis of assertive action, which may lead to parents adopting a “something is better than nothing mindset”, or even a defensiveness about recommended approaches.

When I attended the NVR Advanced training with Peter Jakob he spoke about the important role of supporters for our struggling families and this chimed with my own experience of delivering NVR as part of an Early Help service, working with families who have experienced a lot of trauma and deprivation.  In our service, we mainly deliver NVR to parents in a group setting.  It became apparent that we wouldn’t have the capacity to cover the “supporters/helpers” work with all the families attending the groups,  so we trialled a Multi Family NVR Supporter Zoom session to plug this gap.

I wanted to reflect on how myself and my colleagues work with parents and carers to support them to move from a place of exhaustion, helplessness, withdrawal, and disconnection (erasure) into a place of presence and connection; both through the understanding and use of NVR principles and skills and the parent’s experience of the therapeutic relationship. The parental experience of ‘mattering’ (Beckers et al 2022) to the therapist enables the parent or carers to ‘power up’: enabling them to engage with ideas of self-care (where we often begin), transparency and resistance.

An NVR approach provides a relational, and systemic approach to illuminating the pathway from dependency to independence for the Adult-Child (A-C) that has Yet to Launch (YTL).

‘Yet to launch’, adult-children that are over the age of 18 years of age, are not in employment not participating meaningfully in education or training and are living in the family home at the parent’s expense.  They are dependent on their parents for services, mediation with the outside world, financial support, and accommodation. This phenomenon is a growing challenge for parents worldwide and often

This article originates from real-world insights gained working in a specialist Early Help team in London, dedicated to supporting families and schools in preventing the exclusion of a child. It summarises how innovative Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) approaches, viewed through a trauma-informed lens, can powerfully transform the narrative from exclusion to inclusion for the children and families we work with.