The relational approach - an overview

More information on the relational approach
The relational approach is new way to look at behaviour and understand what promotes satisfying and sustainable relationships even under adverse conditions.  Whilst behaviour management seeks to change the behaviour of another, the relational approach seeks to enable the other to change their own behaviour. Using the relational approach, the practitioner can set up the context within which the other person wants to do the very thing they would like them to do!
We successfully use a relational approach throughout Inaura

That means we

• see behaviour as functional, communicative and meaningful.
• seek to identify the immediate and hidden needs being expressed through behaviours and respond to them quickly and creatively
• address the underlying emotional agenda
• explicitly invite the young people in our care to see themselves as voluntarily participating in a shared endeavour
• promote personal responsibility, with high levels of accountability and support.

This approach needs a profound and holistic human perspective, because each relationship is unique. Nurturing a relationship with someone who has poor interpersonal skills requires an energy and a creativity which only come with authenticity, presence and humility.
This would apply to children and young people with attachment difficulties or developmental disorders, or those who have been abused, neglected, traumatised or badly parented. It would apply to adults who fitted these groupings as children, and who may now be seen by others as antisocial in personality or behaviour, including offenders of all kinds, or as socially inadequate
The relational approach has been tried and tested over many years in the context of work with the most disaffected young people:

• runaways,
• youth offenders,
• those with multiple school exclusions,
• diagnoses of disorder,
• extreme poverty,
• and children in care. 

It is amazingly successful. It is also a pleasure to adopt the approach, relieving the practitioner of much that is tedious and dispiriting in conventional behaviour management.

The approach works because the practitioner aligns themselves with human motivational dynamics which have proved adaptive in the evolution of social relationships.  There are four key aspects: non-coercive techniques, restorative approaches, building relationships of change, and personal empowerment.

To learn more register for the course.