An interpretative analysis of key adults’ and children’s experiences of school and their relationship before and after a Circle of Adults intervention

The purpose of this study was to explore the reflective experiences key adults and children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) had before and after a ‘Circle of Adults’ intervention. The aim was to highlight their experiences of school and relationships with each other and how these experiences may have changed.
Semi structured interviews were conducted with two children (identified by their class teacher as having some SEBD) before and after the intervention. Each child’s class teacher and one child’s learning mentor (collectively referred to as ‘key adults’) attended a ‘Circle of Adults’ intervention and was asked to complete a reflective written task to access their experiences before and after the intervention.
An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology was applied to the generated data from the pre and post semi structured interviews and the reflective written tasks. The significant themes emerging from the analysis of the children’s pre accounts were that they had some attention and security needs and certain requirements from their learning environment. The children and key adults had shared experiences of uncomfortable feelings prior to the intervention, including feeling powerless, out of control, angry and frustrated. Following the intervention children’s and key adults’ experiences revealed a shared sense of self reflection and awareness. There was a greater understanding of each other’s needs, empathy and a sense of hopefulness. Children continued to need certain conditions within their learning environment and key adults were able to recognise this.
The results are discussed in light of implications for the role of the Educational Psychologist (EP) in supporting schools and acknowledging the need to gain children’s views before and after interventions. The need to support schools and being able to deliver evidence based practice and interventions is discussed alongside possible future research into developing an evaluative tool in order to gain these views.