Young Futures
Youth and Youth Hub Support
Adolescence is the second most significant period of brain development after the early years. This means big emotions, big behaviour and big opportunity to help the brain rewire for longer term emotional wellbeing and resilience.
Violence and aggression in teenagers and young people can arise from difficulty in processing emotions. As the brain reshapes during adolescence, it’s common to become impulsive, thrill-seeking or overwhelmed by emotions such as anger, unable to stop and think rationally. For those who have experienced their own trauma or who have not been supported to understand and manage emotions in their early years, this can be more significant: it can result in their brain being wired up to be hypersensitive to threat and to be very reactive. Â
Fortunately, adolescence is the next major surge in brain organisation and development after the first three years of life, so it offers an opportunity to help the brain rewire itself. Therefore, the right emotional health support for young people is critical.
Solihull Approach for young futures and youth support
The Solihull Approach offers an evidence-based approach to understanding emotional wellbeing. The range of training, resources and learning tools designed by the clinical psychologists behind the approach provides a holistic package for Youth Hubs and Young Futures support to ensure young people can thrive as emotionally aware, resilient people throughout their lives.
Practitioner training
Solihull Approach training provides a foundational model for staff working with families. It introduces childhood development and psychoanalytic theory in an accessible way to build practitioners’ confidence in their ability to deliver appropriate and effective support to families. Foundation training can be built on to cascade training across a workforce and deliver workshops using supporting materials.
Foundation training
2 day foundation training
Bespoke group training
Foundation training for teams
Reflective supervision
Workforce development to support a healthy culture and ensure impact from understanding the model
Parent group facilitator training
Preparing to deliver Solihull Approach parent group workshops
Train the trainer, cascade training
Supporting ongoing training and development of staff across functions
Advanced practitioner training
Specialist additional training on trauma, brain development and attachment
Facilitated parent group workshops
Understanding your child’s behaviour, an established face-to-face programme recognised by the EIF is proven to significantly improve children’s prosocial behaviour. Developing parents’ knowledge and understanding of their children’s development, needs, behaviour and communication in a supportive environment has life-changing results for families. An adapted course is also available for parents of children with additional needs.
The course content is also designed to appeal to fathers and can be run for mixed groups or fathers’ groups, given the importance of male role models in managing impulses and anger.
Workshops for parents of adolescents
These are short, two-hour workshops for parents of teenagers or preteens. They introduce information on the rapid brain development during adolescence and what that means for behaviour and parental support.
 For teenagers and young people: Online learning courses on adolescence
The Solihull Approach online courses portal www.inourplace.co.uk hosts online learning for teenagers that can be followed in private 24/7 or as part of a group workshop. Understanding your brain: for teenagers only is designed to help young people understand how their brain changes in adolescence and how this can affect their relationships, their feelings and their emotional wellbeing.  Â
Understanding your feelings: for teenagers only aims to help teenagers understand their strong emotions and how to process them, including anger.Â
 For parents: Understanding your child or teenager
The online learning portal www.inourplace.co.uk includes a range of online courses for private reflective learning about childhood development, adolescent brain reshaping and emotional wellbeing, including specialist-tailored information on mental health and additional needs. All learning on the site is available in 108 languages via Google Translate, and many of the courses are also professionally translated into community languages.Â
Classroom courses for secondary school adolescents
A nine-lesson course designed to support PHSE provides education on adolescent brain development and introduces parenting principles aligned with the Solihull Approach. The lesson series is designed to encourage young people to think about their emotional wellbeing, relationships, and what it means to parent. It also provides detailed practical information about preparing to welcome a baby. The course is designed to be offered by trained school staff supported by a dedicated workshop manual and resources.
Further online learning
Understanding your own trauma
Trauma can impact many aspects of behaviour. This online course is an effective tool for understanding and processing trauma whether personally or supporting others.
Understanding your relationships
This online course for adults focusses in on relationships, including communication and emotions. It emphasises processing anger and conflict.