How a Liverpool scheme is helping pupils manage anxiety

Project A Quiet Place

Purpose To boost children’s educational attainment and wellbeing by tackling their emotional and behavioural problems

Funding Schools and other settings fund the scheme with the full six-week programme costing around £360 a child

Background Children’s social and emotional wellbeing can have a significant impact on how well they do at school and in later life. A Quiet Place was developed by teacher-turned-psychotherapist Penny Moon, who wanted to create a programme to tackle emotional and behaviour problems.

Action The scheme launched in a school in the Speke area of Liverpool back in 1998 and has since expanded to work in a range of settings including other schools, colleges, alternative education settings and children’s homes. It also works with adults.

Children identified as having behavioural problems go through a six-week learning and development course, while ad-hoc support is provided to others. The programme uses a range of techniques designed to reduce anxiety and stress including massage and computer games that monitor players’ heart rate and encourages them to calm down. The programme also teaches children how to control anxiety and manage their own behaviour.

"Because I have been a teacher, I know how schools work and how important it was to have an in-house service and not someone who just goes in and sees a child for half an hour," Moon says.

"It means it becomes a normal part of school life so it is normal for the head teacher to pop in for a massage or for a child to self-refer if they have a headache."

She says this also helps remove the stigma that might be attached to more traditional counselling or mental health services.

Staff are trained to deliver the programme with regular supervision from senior therapists and are encouraged to use techniques as part of day-to-day activities. Parents are also encouraged to get involved.

Outcome A Quiet Place has been the subject of a number of independent studies and also provides annual evaluation reports for each setting.

Researchers from the University of Liverpool looked in detail at its impact on pupils at a school and a registered children’s home catering for seven- to 19-year-olds with severe social and emotional difficulties. Results for the 28 pupils who went through the full six-week programme showed a 23 per cent reduction in pupils’ stress levels with a 20 per cent reduction in parents’ stress levels.

Using techniques they had learned through the programme, 39 per cent of pupils were able to calm themselves down more quickly than before. There was a 65 per cent improvement in primary indicators such as managing feelings and a 42 per cent improvement in secondary indicators such as self-awareness.