Piloting the Incredible Years (IY) Therapeutic Social and Emotional skills programme alongside the IY classroom curriculum with young high-risk children Good afternoon. My name is Nicole Gridley and I am here to present the results from one of our pilot trials of the therapeutic DINA in one of ur Gwynedd schools. Nicole Gridley

OVERVIEW THE INCREDIBLE YEARS TCM & CLASSROOM DINOSAUR SCHOOL CURRICULUM THE INCREDIBLE YEARS THERAPEUTIC DINA PROGRAMME THE GWYNEDD DEVELOPMENT AND RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY THE SAMPLE RESULTS & OUTCOMES CONCLUSIONS THE NEXT STEP I will briefly describe the research to date concerning the TCM & DINA programmes in Gwynedd. I will then briefly describe to you the theraputic DINA programme. A brief outline of our sample. Results and outcomes of the trial. Conclusions drawn from findings. Then finally outline the next step follwing these results.

TCM & classroom DINA goals Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) Promotes teacher-parent collaboration. Presents a variety of strategies to strengthen children’s social & academic confidence. Helps teachers to set up individual programmes to support specific needs of high-risk children. Classroom DINA Comprehensive social skills & problem solving curricula. Teaches positive social & communicative skills. Aims to promote positive self-esteem. Students learn to become feeling detectives & acquire an enhanced feelings vocabulary. The teacher classroom management programme is an effective programme for teachers that promotes a variety of strategies to support students in the classroom. Additionally the Classroom DINA programme is an effective programme to be used with all children in the class to promote positive social skills and problem solving strategies. When both programmes are used in conjunction with each other, all children, regardless of specific needs, are targeted.

THERAPEUTIC DINA PROGRAMME 18-22 weekly, two hour sessions for groups of six clinically referred children 6 separate modules: Making new friends & learning school rules. DINA dinosaur teaches how to do your best in school. Understanding and detecting feelings. Detective Wally teaches problem-solving steps (including anger-management). Molly Manners teaches how to be friendly. Molly explains how to talk to friends. The theraputic DINA is a specific pull-out programme designed specifically for groups of 6 high-risk students who may require additional coaching beyond that of the TCM and the Classroom DINA. Same curriculum as classrtoom but intensive The course typically runs across 18-22 weekly two hour sessions and teaches students 6 core units designed to increase the students self-esteem, social skills and problem solving abilities. The rest of this presentation will discuss the results of a small pilot study where students already receiving the TCM & classroom DINA received extra tuition with the Therapeutic DINA programme.

TCM & CLASSROOM DINA IN GWYNEDD Substantial amount of evidence supporting the IY teacher and child programmes. 2002 Gwynedd Council decide to trial the TCM & classroom DINA curriculum. Results from the two local studies led to the roll out of both programmes and by 2009 all of the 102 primary schools within Gwynedd had the programmes. Estyn School Inspection identified the programmes as contributing to academic excellence, for both individual schools and the county as a whole.

RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY Up to 10% of children are at risk of conduct disorder and/or educational underachievement or failure The classroom Dina curriculum helps to introduce effective social skills and problem solving High risk children might benefit from additional small group coaching

THE PLAN Teachers to identify high risk children Teachers trained to deliver the programme Children familiar with the curriculum from the classroom Timetable for study January – June allowed for 10 two hour sessions to be delivered between baseline and follow-up measures

THE SAMPLE Our sample was taken from four classrooms in a Gwynedd primary school where the students were already receiving TCM & Classroom DINA. The mean age of the sample was 7.19 years ranging from 5-9 years old. The head teacher selected 24 students from the 4 classes based on identification of risk factors. 12 were selected to attend the additional coaching sessions and the other 12 were selected to receive the intervention in the following academic term. Of our sample 4 were English 1st language and the rest were welsh 1st language. Using the Teacher SDQ 5 control participants and 7 intervention participants scored above the clinical cut off of 17 suggesting problematic behaviour.

OUTCOME MEASURES TEACHER REPORT Teacher Rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997) PROBLEM SOLVING Wally Problem Solving Task (Webster-Stratton, 2001) OBSERVATION The Teacher-pupil Observational Tool (T-POT, Martin, 2006) The outcome measures for the pilot trial were: The teacher strengths and difficulties questionnaire which is used as a behavioural screening for hyperactivity, emotional and peer problems. The clinical cut off on this measure is 17, thus scores above this indicate behavioural problems. The Wally problem solving task presents a series of problematic scenarios to the student and asks them to respond to the problem. Responses are rated across a set of predetermined response codes. Finally the observational data was collected using the Teacher-Pupil Observation Tool, a 72 teacher-pupil behavioral coding system that is based on the DPICS system by Robinson and Eyberg 1981. This records behaviour of child/teacher behaviour.

RESULTS No significant differences were found on any of the measures using the whole sample of Control & Intervention. Of the sample of 24, 7 Intervention & 5 control were rated as being above the clinical cut off of 17 or above on the TSDQ. Analysis was undertaken of complete data sets from this smaller sub-sample.

RESULTS: WALLY Problem solving test – total responses This graph demonstrates when using the smaller sub sample that there is a significant increase in total responses to all problems for the intervention group. Whilst there is a decrease for the control group.

RESULTS: WALLY problem solving test total positives For total positive responses the intervention group show a significant improvement whilst the control group decrease in the amount of positive responses.

RESULTS: WALLY problem solving test – pro-social responses Again for total pro-social responses along the Wally test the intervention group show a significant improvement whilst the control decrease.

RESULTS: WALLY problem solving test – aggressive responses For total agonistic response, such as aggressive responses, the intervention group show a significant decrease whilst the control group show no change.

RESULTS: TSDQ Both groups were improving but the intervention group shoed a significant

RESULTS: T-POT T-POT - Teacher-Pupil Observation Tool No significant differences between baseline and follow up for any T-POT categories for either the whole (N=24) or sub-sample (n=11) Strong correlations between Teacher & Child Positives for both whole sample and sub-sample: N= 22, .781, p<.001 n= 11, .749, p<.01 Control (n=5) Pre Mean = 3.20, Post Mean = 2.40, t=1.089, p>.05 Intervention (n=6) Pre Mean = 6.33, Post Mean = 7.83, t= .510, p>.05

RESULTS: T-POT For observational data you can see that whilst the intervention group were demonstrating more positive behaviour towards the teacher at baseline in comparison to the control group this continues to increase across time, whilst the control group decrease the frequency of positive behaviour.

RESULTS: T-POT Again at baseline teachers are demonstrating more positive behaviour towards the intervention students and this is continued across time, however the controls decrease across time.

CONCLUSIONS The DINA programme successfully decreased behavioural problems & increased problem solving skills in those children who it was designed for. Reduced TSDQ scores demonstrate DINA curricula can significantly reduce the occurrence of problematic behaviours that affect the classroom environment. Changes for the Wally problem-solving task demonstrate the programmes ability to increase students understanding and utilize problem-solving strategies, leading to an overall increase in effective solutions. Evidence of a strong relationship between child and teacher positive behaviour suggests programme effectively improves the pupil-teacher relationship.

THE NEXT STEP Due to the positive findings from this pilot study Gwynedd Education Service have committed to the roll out of this programme to a further 20 schools across Gwynedd. Funding has been obtained from the BIG Lottery research fund to undertake a large-randomised controlled trial of this roll out starting in 2010. Utilizing a larger sample means a more rigorous study of the effectiveness of the therapeutic DINA programme can be conducted in schools where teachers have already undertaken the Teacher Classroom Management Training and all children already receive the the classroom DINA.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING ANY QUESTIONS?

CONTACT: Nicole Gridley psp80b@bangor.ac.uk or Professor Judy Hutchings j.hutchings@bangor.ac.uk Tel: (01248) 382651 Website: www.incredibleyearswales.co.uk http://incredible-years-wales-research.bangor.ac.uk