The ability to build trust and rapport with children with mental disabilities

There are many different approaches that can be adopted by professionals to help reduce tension and make a child with mental disabilities feel more relaxed. There are non-verbal activities and games such as: motor skills activities e.g. pass the ball; building blocks game; drawing pictures and reading a story etc. For children who are more communicative adopt non-threatening and safe-topics such as talking about the weather or what transport the child used to travel to the meeting both of which are considered good ice-breakers.

An approach to ice-breaking adopted in the Choice and Change project, a UK based longitudinal study, where participants included 12 young people with learning disabilities, was to collect socio-demographic information from the young people, prior to the first interview, via a cartoon based ‘All About Me’ booklet. In the UK, the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities and Cafcass , have both developed good examples of these types of booklets.

Displaying appropriate body language is also a key factor in building trust. If nonverbal signals do not match what is being said this is likely to cause and generate mistrust. There are many different ways that we communicate nonverbally such as using facial expressions, gestures, body posture and touch. Adopting an open posture and being welcoming, relaxed and smiling can all help a child feel more comfortable. Some children often play on the floor with their toys and so the professional might consider sitting on the floor with the child and joining in with them.

Evidence suggests that children communicate best with people they have good relationships with It is therefore important that professionals develop effective listening skills otherwise communication can break down. One way to improve listening skills is to practice ‘active listening’, this involves responding to what children are saying by summarising and repeating back to them what you think they mean from that sentence. This gives the child the opportunity to correct you if you have misunderstood them. The Mosaic approach considers children to be ‘experts in their own lives’ and enables children’s perspectives to be obtained through talking, walking, making and reviewing together.’

According to Franklin and Sloper working with young people with learning disabilities and/or non-verbal communication takes time and is not a ‘one off’ encounter. It is therefore important that professionals maintain the rapport that they have developed with the child during their absence by providing the child with something that they can remember them by, such as a photo and also their contact details. This is an approach often used by prospective adoptive parents before a child’s placement becomes permanent. A similar approach has been adopted in Hungary in the ‘life-buoy’ programme, developed by a psychologist of the Child Protection Centre, in cooperation with the police and Primary Care Centre in Baranya County, whereby parents were asked to give their child their favourite toy, photos and contact details, so as to lessen the traumatic effect of being removed from their families:

In the UK, social workers who were helping the police interview a child with learning disabilities who had been a victim of child sexual exploitation gave the girl their mobile phone number so she could contact them anytime she felt she needed to speak to someone and they also created a timeline so that she could count down the days to their next visit. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-25659042