Prof. Judy Hutchings, Dr. Tracey Bywater, Nicole Gridley, Chris Whitaker, Stella Griffiths & Pam Martin

1. Prof. Judy Hutchings, Dr. Tracey Bywater, Nicole Gridley, Chris Whitaker, Stella Griffiths & Pam Martin Delivering the Therapeutic Dinosaur School Social & Emotional Programme to High Risk Young Children: a pilot project. • Rationale • Up to 10% of children are at risk of conduct disorder and/or educational underachievement or failure. • Positive results obtained from pilot studies led to the roll out of both the IY Teacher Classroom Management & Classroom DINA social and emotional curriculum across Gwynedd throughout 2009. • Classroom Dina curriculum works as a preventive programme to help all children to develop effective social skills and problem solving • High risk children might benefit from additional small group Dina coaching that was developed for clinically referred children. Therapeutic DINA Designed for ‘high risk’ clinically referred children. 18-22 weekly, two-hour sessions Small groups of 6 children Covers 6 separate topics: Making new friends & learning school rules. How to do your best in school. Understanding and detecting feelings. Problem-solving & anger management. How to be friendly. How to talk to friends. Outcome Measures Teacher Report Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997) (TSDQ) Problem Solving Wally Problem Solving Task (Webster-Stratton, 2001) Direct Observation Teacher-Pupil Observational Tool (T-POT, Martin,2006) • The Sample • Teachers identified high risk children N = 24. • 12 assigned to Control, 12 to Intervention. • Teachers trained to deliver the programme • Children already familiar with the curriculum from the classroom • Of the 24 children 5 in the control & 7 in the Intervention scored above the clinical cut off of 17 on the TSDQ. • Timetable for study January – June allowed for 10 two hour sessions delivered between baseline and follow-up measures Results & Conclusions Figure 1. Significant reduction in problematic behaviours that affect the classroom for intervention children only as measured using the TSDQ. Figure 2. Showing an increase in teacher praise for intervention children post intervention and a reduction of teacher praise for control children over the same period. Figures 3, 4, 5 & 6. Significant increases of positive, pro-social and total responses to all problems, and a significant reduction of aggressive responses for intervention children. Results indicate an increase in problem solving skills and ability to describe effective solutions as measured using the Wally Problem Solving Test. Contact Prof. Judy Hutchings Email: j.hutchings@bangor.ac.uk Tel: 01248 388898 Visit our websites: www.incredibleyearswales.co.uk http://incredible-years-wales-research.bangor.ac.uk