Story Links: Therapeutic storywriting with parents and children at risk of exclusion
Written by: Trisha Waters Elizabeth Holmes
7 min read
Dr Trisha Waters, Centre for Therapeutic Storywriting, UK
Elizabeth Holmes, Freelance education writer, UK
Introduction
Story Links is a parent partnership model of intervention that supports students at risk of exclusion due to mental health and behavioural difficulties related to attachment anxiety. It uses the principles of therapeutic storywriting (Waters, 2004). The theoretical background of Story Links draws on Bowlby’s (1997) concept of attachment and Hughes’ (2004) criteria for supporting positive attachment.
A two-year research study at the University of Chichester, funded by the Training and Development Agency for Schools and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, found that Story Links increased parental involvement in pupils’ learning, reduced pupil anxiety, improved classroom behaviour and supported reading skills (Waters, 2010).
Rationale for Story Links
If a student is emotionally preoccupied in class due to attachment anxiety, their capacity to engage wi
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- Bowlby J (1997) A Secure Base. London: Routledge.
- Goodman R (1997) The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 38: 581–586.
- Hughes D (2004) An attachment-based treatment of maltreated children and young people. Attachment & Human Development 6: 263–278.
- Jarvis P (2020) Birth to three matters for schools: Attachment theory and readiness to learn. In: BERA Blog. Available at: www.bera.ac.uk/blog/birth-to-three-matters-for-schools-attachment-theory-and-readiness-to-learn (accessed 12 December 2021).
- Waters T (2004) Therapeutic Storywriting: A Practical Guide to Developing Emotional Literacy in Primary Schools. London: David Fulton.
- Waters T (2010) Story Links programme evaluation: The impact of a parent partnership intervention that uses therapeutic storywriting to support pupils at risk of exclusion. University of Chichester. Available at: www.StoryLinksTraining.co.uk/evidence-base (accessed 12 December 2021).
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