Clinical offer at Crookhey Hall School
At Crookhey Hall School we provide a bespoke clinical offer to meet the individual needs of each pupil. The school offers a three- tiered approach, demonstrated through the pyramid strategy; All, Group and Individual to adequately assess the needs of all pupils, and implement the required and necessary support. Ensuring our pupils can thrive within their learning environment.
The school provides an in-house therapy team comprising of a Clinical Lead, who is a Child, and Young Person Psychotherapist- specialising in a Play and Creative Art therapy approach, a second Psychotherapist- specialising in Art therapy, an Occupational therapist, a Speech and Language therapist and our Therapy assistant. On arrival into the school the team conduct a multi-disciplinary assessment to determine the level of need of each pupil.
Our All offer ensures the children and young people we support have optimal well-being through a nurturing, trauma informed, and compassionate approach. The staff team receive extensive and specified training, led by our two key strategies; Our Trauma Informed Practice strategy- TIP- pioneers a three C’s model of Connect, Co-regulate, and Co-Reflect- creating safe environments and trusted relationships, developing supportive and consistent strategies, through structure, repetition, and therapeutic boundaries. Our Autism strategy- AAD ‘Ask, Accept, Develop’ initiated to strengthen and continually progress our approach to the provision of care, education and clinical services to autistic individuals, in an environment which is conducive to their strength and needs. We embrace the neurodiversity positivity culture, and the uniqueness of each autistic individual, celebrating difference, not deficit. The school embeds a Zones of regulation ‘ZOR’ curriculum, supported by the school’s Occupational therapist, and led by the school team; to develop social and emotional learning. It is used as a baseline approach to develop pupils’ emotional literacy and provides them with tools and strategies to encompass emotional self-understanding and self-regulation.
The clinical team complete specified, individual, and personalised clinical documents to ensure clear communication of pupil need to all members involved, these are the Understanding me, My sensory world, and communication profiles.
The staff team receive termly ‘Reflective practice’ to discuss approach, and areas of self-development, within the support they offer to pupils.
Our Group offer provides focussed support to meet need. This might include an SEMH, SaLT/and or OT focussed therapy group for a period of time.
Our Individual offer provides pupils with direct 1-1 therapeutic support in the discipline they require, working directly with the school’s Psychotherapist, Occupational therapist, or Speech and Language therapist. Some pupils may only require working with one member of the clinical team, depending on the identified need, however, some pupils will require support from multiple disciplines. The individual level will consist of detailed assessments, reports, clinical plans, attendance at specified meetings, alongside direct consultations from the clinical team with staff members, parents, and professionals, informing individual support plans and strategies for pupils.
The clinical team has an in-house referral pathway should a child or young person, require a separate referral for Education, and or Clinical Psychology support. This is assessed and determined on the complexity of their needs.
Crookhey Hall school is proud of our holistic approach, we endeavour to empower pupils, and are passionate about providing care, support, and education to young people with neurodiverse needs, complex needs, and learning difficulties to flourish within all aspects of life.
Nurture Provision
The Nurture provision within Crookhey Hall School provides additional support for students who have difficulty accessing the curriculum. Every pupil is assessed in terms of their speech, language and communication skills by a highly skilled practitioner who visits school on a regular basis to assess the progress of individual young people and to advise staff on planned intervention strategies where needed.
The Nurture Team also utilises Precision Teaching to promote and accelerate reading, writing and communication. This allows staff to pinpoint specific learning difficulties and so put together an individual learning programme with the objective of enabling the student to fully access the curriculum.
In addition, the Nurture Team helps students to deal with their behavioural and emotional difficulties. A target system is in place across the school which allows us to monitor progress the students are making towards specific targets and means that intervention strategies can be more clearly targeted where necessary.
The Nurture Provision is central to the aims of the whole school and is constantly looking to expand. We hope to include an element of art therapy in the near future and, having become part of the National Nurture Network, we are able to tap into the resources and expertise of over 700 other nurture providers.