After working for Children’s Social Care for more than 15 years and working with families in crisis, I joined Alder Hey in 2019 as a Mental Health Practitioner.
I had no idea of what NVR entailed, but had taken cases to supervision and been advised that this family needs NVR a few times, and so when the opportunity to attend the Foundation Training appeared, I grabbed it. Since then, I have incorporated principles of NVR in most of my interventions, whether it be with parents or groups or even with colleagues. After the Level 2 Training with Peter Jakob and the SPACE training with Eli Lebowitz, I was allocated a position in my service to develop an NVR SPIG and run with it in any way possible.
At first, I established relationships with staff and parents in a local Pupil Referral Unit, delivering workshops, attending coffee mornings and through consultation, raising my presence in person and offering an element of support to staff and parents.
Secondly, I delivered a parent group, introducing a culture where there is no judgment – everything that has gone before is not wrong but an attempted solution. 
It’s important to keep language as non-blaming, with a child-centred focus – exploring the idea of behaviour as communication – adapting for additional need – psychoeducation regarding intent of behaviour. Validating that “You’ve been putting so much energy into what you have been doing, just asking you to channel that energy in a different way”.
Going through the NVR elements but spending quality time thinking about the relationship, in particular, the secure base and considering relational ruptures and how to repair these. Considering attachment styles, we are aiming for that strong parent to make the child feel secure – If they show strength, not hostility, I begin to feel safer.
When we explore parental presence, we ask parents to dig deep because, due to the age of children, lots of physical presence is required, but are they really present mentally and emotionally? Ask them to consider this and how their child experiences them in those moments.
We were also able to offer staff training to get as many NVR ideas across. Here I tried to encourage language shifts – encouraging language of resistance; having a focus on self-control instead of controlling the child; a narrative of the child becoming more than his/her violence or behaviour. 
Giving psychoeducation around the window of tolerance and how they can help themselves to stay grounded in the most serious of escalations. Our presence modelled this to the staff.
Staff can then become supporters for each other in those moments, but also to the family in that when there is a small basket behaviour, staff can let others go, to reinforce parents’ efforts and reduce external pressure – a real holistic approach to that child’s system.
It was really beneficial to hear the reflections from others after delivering my presentation; their ideas and wonderings allowed me to take stock of the adaptations I made to this particular group and reflect on how I have changed in my professional practice and as a person since beginning my NVR journey.
Written by Frances Green,
Mental Health Practitioner
NVR Association (NVRA) Accredited Practitioner
Accreditation Module Participant, 2024
