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What is NVR?

• NVR addresses violent, destructive and harmful behaviours in children and adolescents

• The methods and ideas of non-violent resistance and direct action come from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King

• NVR can help parents and carers overcome their sense of helplessness

• It can develop and strengthen a support network that will reduce violent and destructive behaviours both in and out of the home

• It can improve relationships between family members and the outside world

Mission statement

• Learning to resist violence and destructive

behaviours is a powerful choice to make

• NVR is not about giving in or ignoring

behaviour

• NVR restores individual strength and self

respect and supports caring and respectful relationships in the family and wider

communities

What are the key principles?

• Taking a firm stand against violence, risk taking and antisocial behaviours

• Holding back from physical or verbal

violence

• Increasing positive presence in the child’s life

How do we put these into practice?

• Increasing parental/carer presence

• De-escalating conflicts

• Taking a firm stand against any acts of violence by the parent or the child/adolescent

• Announcing a commitment to the child/adolescent

• Arranging sit-ins

• Breaking the cycle of shame and silence

• Recruiting and using supporters

• Creating reconciliation gestures that are not linked to the young person’s

behaviour but increase positive interactions between parents/carers and

young people

PARENTAL PRESENCEInside home Outside home

REBUILDING THERELATIONSHIP

De-escalation

Supporters

Sit-inAnnouncement

BasketsReconciliation

Gestures

Helping siblingsand others

Looking afteryourselves

NVR Map

Parent Testimonials

• When we started NVR our daughter (who has Aspergers) was 15 years old and out of school. Her behaviour was on a downward spiral: she came and went from the family home as she liked, she was verbally abusive, physically threatening, she had ‘trashed’ our home several times. Eventually we had her arrested and charged with theft after she had stolen money, phones and jewellery many times.

• Looking through the NVR booklet it was hard to imagine what we could achieve: would this really work? When you face challenging behaviour on a daily basis it is hard to believe that anything will change it, all our lives seemed very fragile and uncertain.

• Coming to the sessions and talking about the ways of dealing with our child as well as knowing that there were others in our situation gave us the confidence in ourselves to change our reactions to difficult situations. Looking back over the past few months the things that helped were giving firm boundaries, keeping rules simple, not letting situations escalate and presenting a calm, caring attitude. The ‘baskets’were a useful tool for focusing on the main issues that needed addressing immediately.

• We are not perfect parents, we still get frustrated sometimes and shout instead of talk, but there is a great improvement to the quality of all our lives and our time spent at NVR sessions were of enormous help and we are glad that we persevered.

• Our daughter is now in college and is much more settled. We still find it hard to believe that we won’t ever go back to how things were before, but we continue to build bridges where we can and slowly our confidence and trust in her grows. We love our daughter very much.

Testimonial 2

• I have found a big change in our family life as a whole and the relationship between my son and me has improved 80%. This has also helped my daughter (who has ADHD) tremendously and the arguments have been cut by 50% because her brother has been less aggressive in responding to her bad behaviour.

• It has all happened gradually but improvements are continually being made.

• Even though my daughter’s behavioural problems are pretty constant my attitude towards her has changed so this has helped me cope much better.

Graduate Parents

• Every parent who completes the programme becomes a graduate parent

• New parents meet a graduate parent

• Non-pathologising experience

• Creates a network of support

• Booster seminars

• Newsletter

Research Findings• In the United States Weinblatt (2007) found that “parents

that received training in NVR showed a decrease in parental helplessness and escalatory behaviours, and an increase in perceived social support. The children’s negative behaviours, as assessed by the parents, also decreased significantly”.

• Research in Germany by Ollefs (2008) shows that when NVR is compared with one of the NICE recommended parenting programmes (Triple P for teenagers), the outcomes are the same but the client group is significantly different. Therapists using NVR were more successful in keeping parents engaged and the NVR adolescent group had a wider range of more difficult problems than the Triple P adolescents . Both groups did better than the control group who received no treatment.

Why this approach?• It works• It changes ways of relating in the long term

• It reduces distress for the carer and the child

• It helps parents move away from a position of helplessness

• It values parents’ experiences and abilities• It promotes healthy relationships

• It is an individual approach

• Has guiding principles rather than directive

strategies

• It changes the child’s environment rather than

expecting the child to change

• It works on principles rather than specifics

• The child adapts their behaviour in response

to a more healthy environment

NVR Audit

• Initial evaluation of the first four Oxleas parenting programmes shows that NVR is effective and that it addresses the needs of families where the problem behaviour is at the more extreme end of the spectrum . At the end of the programme most parents assessed themselves as less distressed, more in control and feeling more supported (Day & Heismann, 2009).

Attenders by age group

Attenders by age group

34%

55%

11%

age 8 - 12

age 13 - 15

age 16 - 17

Attenders by Gender

all 4 NVR clinics: Gender

71%

29% all 4 NVR clinics males

all 4 NVR clinics

females

Oxleas at the Cutting Edge

• Oxleas has developed the first NVR parent group

• A three year Randomised Control Trial study is

beginning this year in Belgium and they have asked permission to translate and use the materials that therapists at Bexley and Greenwich CAMHS have developed.

• Later this year clinicians from Sweden will be visiting the Oxleas NVR programme

NVR Projects

• NVR parent booklet and wristband

• 4 audited joint Bexley and Greenwich NVR parent group programmes

• NVR parent group manual and DVD

• Bexley foster carer group – Autumn 09

• Next joint service parent group –Autumn 09

• International NVR conference 2010