Protective Behaviours: safety, confidence and self-esteem

Journal of Mental Health Promotion, Mar 2004 by Rose, Jocelyn

In addition to these strategies, throughout the teaching of the process and in the training of trainers other safeguards are used to make sure that participants themselves feel safe - or as safe as possible.

There are a number of teaching packs available (eg. Lippett (1993), Margetts et al (1996), McNamee (2001) and Rose (200O)) that give ideas for how Protective Behaviours can be used in a classroom or other formal setting. However the approach is very flexible and can be used in a variety of ways in many situations, including:

* difficulty accessing or articulating feelings

* involvement in risky behaviour

* isolation.

People are empowered to make the connections themselves, and take from the process what they need to help themselves feel safe.

Evidence of effectiveness

Although it was first devised with children and young people in mind, Protective Behaviours is now used with and has been found useful by people of all ages. Formal evaluation, however, is proving to be a challenge. Early studies on the effectiveness of the process in schools include Dwyer (1990) and Johnson (1995) on Australian schools, but both of these are flawed: Dwyer because of her bias - clearly visible in the introduction to the study in favour of a rival programme to which Protective Behaviours is compared, and Johnson because the measures he chooses to demonstrate success are not congruent with the ethos of the programme. (Newton and Wade (1992) use the same method.) The difficulty is to find a meaningful effect that can be measured, and then to have the time and resources to demonstrate this in the long term and here, as far as schools are concerned, the Protective Behaviours organisation is yet to find the answer.

One recent attempt at evaluation in the UK (Rose 2003) focused on the experience of teachers and students being introduced to Protective Behaviours in the classroom, rather than on any long-term effects on either group, although it included a comparative study of a school where the process is established and where improved relationships within the school were directly attributable to it. In other contexts, however, more headway has been made, and this includes the study by Harper et al (2002), where it is shown that people with learning disabilities are able to grasp Protective Behaviours concepts and show improved assertiveness as a result, and also Fardons (1999) discussion of how his use of the process with groups of disaffected young people in school 'provide [d] support to pupils and a forum in which to talk about issues that concern[ed] them'.

The emerging restorative justice movement in the UK has also been strongly influenced by the philosophy of Protective Behaviours. Restorative justice is a community approach, based on the practice in New Zealand (where it was pioneered). Offences are understood in the context of a breakdown in social bonds. It develops alternatives to custodial sentences for offenders, often by bringing together those who commit and those affected by a crime, to decide appropriate reparations. Thames Valley Police, who were responsible for introducing Protective Behaviours to the UK, were instrumental in forming links between Protective Behaviours and restorative justice, in particular through the Caution Plus! Initiative, which works with young shoplifters in Milton Keynes.