Enhancing Emotional Wellbeing in the Community of Children and Young People With Visual Impairments'

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Enhancing Emotional Well-being in the Community
of Children and Young People With Visual
Impairments.

• ISPA, Tampere 2007
• Gail Bailey Consultant Child Psychologist to RNIB
  Cymru, Associate Tutor Cardiff University and
  Postgraduate at UCL.

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The Visual Impairment and Emotional Well-being
Service (VIEWS) in Wales a positive
psychological approach to meeting specific
emotional needs
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What and where is Wales?

• To the left of England
• Area 20,640km2
• Population 3 million
• Children approx 25
• Incidence of visual impairment in children
  21000

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Premise of VIEWS project

• ALL children have the potential and right to lead
  fulfilling, happy lives regardless of their
  abilities or disabilities.
• There is a need to work systematically to offset
  barriers to social and emotional competence
  resulting from visual impairment.
• It is vital to empower primary caregivers and
  professionals to find ways of actively promoting
  emotional well-being.

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Rationale

• There are particular points during the life of a
  blind or partially sighted child / young person
  where they and their families are in need of
  emotional support.
• By understanding the implications of visual
  impairment for EWB, one can apply positive
  psychology to offset prolonged psychological
  distress and actively promote well-being.

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On Happiness

• When one door of happiness closes, another opens
  but often we look so long at the closed door that
  we do not see the one which has been opened for
  us.
• Helen Keller

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EWB and VI needs

• Rehabilitation literature, Dodds et al (1991).
• Loss vs skill acquisition theories
• 5 adjustment categories
• Self determination issues

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Reduced Opportunities for Self Determined
Behaviours

• Robinson and Lieberman, 2004 report that parents
  have a crucial role in fostering SD, providing
  opportunities to develop these skills from an
  early age. Doss and Hatcher (1996) report that
  parents tend to over-protect. The 2004 study of
  54 students with VI (aged 8-23) demonstrated that
  they had low scores on self- determination across
  all domains.

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Situation at beginning of project (2004)

• 12 of hospital out-patient departments had
  counsellors available, but 70 of patients would
  welcome the opportunity to talk about the
  implications of their sight loss (Barrick 2000).
• RNIB regularly approached by traumatised families
  struggling to come to terms with sight loss or by
  professionals highlighting emotional and
  motivational difficulties.

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Sources of referrals
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Age of young people supported
Spread of age of young people at referral (by )
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Reasons for referral
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The Psychology a role for self-determination
theory (SDT)?

• Emotional wellbeing and motivation are common
  concerns of adults working with the VI
  population.
• Ryan and Deci ( 2000) hold that autonomy,
  competence and relatedness, are needs that must
  be met if one is to possess good levels of
  motivation and well-being.
• Consider the adjustment issues above and how they
  mesh with SDT.

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Self-determination Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000)
A Positive framework for supporting Emotional
Well-being and Motivation
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Two sided strategy

• 1. Immediate needs of children, young people
  and families addressed (emergency caseload
  handled by EHDO)
• 2. Training given by EHDO to counsellors,
  educational and clinical psychologists across
  Wales 22 LAs.

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Outcomes to be achieved

• Improved support to boost childrens self esteem,
  confidence and self-advocacy. Addressing barriers
  to emotional competence.
• Parents / carers better equipped to cope with
  both practical and emotional demands of caring
  for a child with VI
• Sighted siblings more able to deal with common
  issues arising from having a disabled
  brother/sister and to cope with bullying
• Organisations able to expand own services to
  local families across Wales.

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Need for targeted professional involvement at the
point of need

• training for health professionals - eye clinic
  staff
• training for front-line professionals -
  specialist teachers (VI), school social workers
  and counsellors.
• training for educational and clinical
  psychologists with sustainable networks set up.

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Working at three levels

• Positive intervention to build self-respect and a
  positive self-identity, enabling self-advocacy of
  the individual.
• Support to enable the family to modify
  behaviours, encouraging parents to address their
  own emotional needs and providing support through
  the grieving process.
• Support at school to remove barriers to inclusion
  in the curriculum and the peer group and to
  promote competence.

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A Framework For Promoting Emotional Well-being in
Children and Young People with VI
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Outcomes

• The triadic approach of working with individual
  children and young people, their families and
  their schools has been used as a basis for
  training professionals across Wales, and enabling
  them to train others.
• It addresses the interacting factors that
  contribute to emotional well-being in a positive
  way and aims to off-set prolonged psychological
  distress in response to visual loss.

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Summary Supporting Emotional Well-being in VIC

• Reduce trauma at outset
• Provide emotional support (issues in UK )
  /ecological response necessary
• Addressing the needs across school, family and
  individual domains.
• Promote Emotional literacy, SD and access to FUN!

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Contact Details

• BaileyG_at_cardiff.ac.uk
• 07967 801054 (mobile)
• 02920 450440 (RNIB)