Dr Tony Meehan
Educator / Former Head Teacher
NVR Association (NVRA) Accredited Practitioner
Tony has 29 years of experience as a teacher in mainstream secondary and special schools. This includes over 8 years as head of a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU), working with the vulnerable pupils excluded from mainstream school and their families in inner London, before retiring in 2017. It was during this latter period of his career that he became convinced of the urgent need to explore alternative approaches to managing challenging behaviour in order to stem the flow of exclusions from mainstream schools.
Tony sees NVR as a powerful alternative to the traditional behaviourist models in operation in almost all mainstream schools; as a model rooted in authentic relationship-building, it is particularly apt in its focus on supporting adults to manage themselves effectively when faced with challenging behaviour from a young person.
Tony has a professional doctorate in education from Middlesex University for his research into how exclusion from school affects the parents of those excluded; and how PRUs might be reconceptualised in an advocacy role supporting families to secure reintegration for their children back into mainstream school as quickly as possible, rather than lingering in PRUs often for many years.