National Behaviour Support Service and Occupational Therapy in School: An Irish Experience

The results of a pilot project between the Discipline of Occupational Therapy, Trinity College, Dublin, and the National Behaviour Support Service (NBSS) demonstrate that collaboration between professionals, students and parents can enable those of social disadvantage with significant behavioural problems participate better in school. This chapter describes the development of this service for students in two disadvantaged second-level schools, the processes of identifying need, interventions delivered and the collaborative workings of the partnership. The broad view of the Person–Environment–Occupation (Law et al., 1996) and a client-centred approach (Law & Mills, 1998) guided the intervention. An understanding of the social and situational influences in the school and classroom as experienced by each student was sought, as was the impact of possible sensory processing and attention difficulties on satisfactory participation in school. Students were perceived as having individual social and self-management learning needs and each class group and school was acknowledged as a unique culture. Engagement in fun-focused group processes supported the experience of inter-subjectivity and peer group learning was actively fostered. Thus, social action and co-construction of shared learning brought students to better connect with themselves and each other resulting in better engagement in school. However, each school staff and management team had its own culture and metaphor for explaining their students’ behaviours. This influenced their response to the occupational therapy perspective applied in this project. Following on from the success of this project, it is recommended that the collaborative approach between student, parents, teachers and therapist should be further developed in schools to benefit those with complex challenging behaviours. A national agency such as the NBSS is central to delivering this collaboration and partnership.