STAY CURIOUS, BE TENACIOUS

Stay curious, be tenacious

Every programme is built around one young person from scratch — not adapted from a template. Below is the framework behind it, and what it means for the young people you refer to us.

Most young people referred to us have spent a long time managing their own safety. That shows up as hypervigilance — constantly scanning for what might go wrong — and it consumes almost everything they have. A young person in fight, flight or freeze isn't refusing to learn. The part of the brain that solves problems has been switched off by the part keeping them safe.

So we don't open with objectives. We build predictability first: the same greeting, the same routine, a clear picture of what's happening and when, and consistency of staff wherever possible. Small, repeated, reliable things. A young person who can predict their day stops having to defend it — and only then is there capacity for anything else.

Every request we make comes with its reason. That's the difference between an instruction a young person complies with and one they understand.

70% belongs to the young person, built from what they're curious about. This is where confidence, resilience and critical thinking are built, because those things can only be practised on something they actually care about.

30% belongs to their mentor — skills for life and independence, and the specific outcomes agreed with you at referral.

Real ownership creates real buy-in, and buy-in is why they turn up. It's the main reason a community-based programme succeeds where a timetable hasn't.

Our team works to Dan Hughes' PACE model — playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy — on the principle that you have to reach the emotional part of a young person's brain before the problem-solving part is available.

Playfulness shows a young person we enjoy being with them unconditionally, and that the relationship survives things going wrong.

Acceptance means sitting with what they feel without judging it, including when what they say about themselves is difficult to hear. We don't rush to correct "I'm stupid." We stay with it long enough to find what's underneath.

Curiosity is how we get there. Behaviour is communication of need, so we don't ask why — that lands as an accusation. We ask what the behaviour was for, and what they needed at that moment.

Empathy shows a young person their feelings matter and that we can cope alongside them on the difficult days.

Parents often tell us "school doesn't see the behaviour we do." That's rarely a disagreement about the child — it's masking. A young person holds it together all day, and it comes out at home.

So we build sessions around genuine interests and give young people space to be themselves without pressure. For many, our sessions are the only part of the week where the mask comes down — which is why we often see things school and home don't.

Where anxiety drives a need for control, including for young people with a PDA profile, ordinary requests become impossible. That's anxiety, not defiance.

We change our language rather than our expectations — depersonalising rules, offering choice, using humour, allowing more time. The objectives don't move. We just stop putting them in the shape of a demand.

Rapport isn't luck or personality — it's a set of learnable skills, and our team is trained in them: matching and mirroring, and tonality. Where a young person is dysregulated, we don't mirror the state; we co-regulate.

Done properly none of it is visible. It just feels to a young person like being with someone who gets it.

Every programme includes structured reflection during travel to and from the activity — side by side rather than face to face, no eye contact required. What went well, what needs revisiting, what happens next. It's where a lot of the real conversations happen.

Objectives are set by the young person and shaped by what you need. Where there's an EHCP, its outcomes are built in from the start — so the work counts towards annual review rather than sitting alongside it.

Every session ends with a written Daily Sessional Feedback Log: programme aim, session aim, session overview, reflections and what went well, actions to take. That reaches you after every session, not as a summary at the end of term.

Anxiety · Self-worth · Attendance in other settings · Emotional regulation · Peer relationships · Independence and travel · Transition readiness