Emma Shackleton: 0:44

So when we think about pupils with SEMH needs, we often focus on children who have difficulties with strong emotions like anger or anxiety. But there's another group of students who often go under the radar. They're the kids that experience persistent, long term feelings of sadness. And in this week's episode, we interview Clare Williams from Hamish and Milo who shares strategies and insights for identifying who those children are and how we can help them in school.

Simon Currigan: 1:17

Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and, of course, students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. Hi there. Welcome to school behavior secrets. My name's Simon Currigan. Richard Dawkins once said, sometimes in life, it is a good idea to stop. Sometimes it is a good idea to go on. The trick is to decide when to stop. If he was in this room listening to this podcast, hearing we've reached over 200 episodes in. I reckon Richard Dawkins would have his head in his hands telling us we definitely missed a trick. I'm joined today as ever by my more than able cohost, Emma Shackleton. Hi, Emma.

Emma Shackleton: 2:26

Hi, Simon.

Simon Currigan: 2:26

Time for a quick question.

Emma Shackleton: 2:28

Of course.

Simon Currigan: 2:29

Okay then. According to a February 2024 poll by YouGov, do most people prefer a happy ending or a sad ending to a romantic book film or TV show?

Emma Shackleton: 2:42

Happy ending. Surely. What kind of people are craving a sad ending? The world is hard enough. I say people want a happy ending a 100%.

Simon Currigan: 2:53

Oh, the goths in the room won't agree with that. But the winner by an absolute, sorry goths. By an absolute landslide at 72% It's a happy ending. Only 5% preferred a sad ending. They listened to a lot of My Chemical Romance. And 23% were undecided.

Emma Shackleton: 3:12

Okay. So what's the point? Why are you asking about sad and happy endings?

Simon Currigan: 3:17

I'm asking today because we're going to be exploring how to support pupils who experience long term persistent feelings of sadness with our guest Clare Williams from Hamish and Milo. So this isn't about kids who get short term sadness, the kind of feelings that naturally come and go for all children and adults, in fact. This is when peoples get stuck in the sadness, and they can't get out of it. And Clare gives us some really specific simple strategies we can use to support those kids in our schools.

Emma Shackleton: 3:49

Oh, I'm really excited for this episode. Clare and I have both been guest speakers at Ascend Conference recently. It's been so lovely to connect with her and hear about the work of Hamish and Milo. I think this is an important conversation because it's easy for kids like this to go under the radar because they're not acting out or externalising their behavior or attacking other children or throwing chairs and that kind of thing. They're easy to miss.

Simon Currigan: 4:16

Yeah. Definitely. Definitely easy to miss. And this is another category of need we've definitely seen on the rise since COVID and lockdown.

Emma Shackleton: 4:23

By the way, if you're working with children who have difficulty managing strong emotions, we've got a free download that could help your students or even your own children at home if you're listening to this as a parent. It's called how to help children manage anger and other strong emotions.

Simon Currigan: 4:41

Of course, persistent sadness is another strong emotion. The guide gives you an approach to helping your student or your child understand, recognize, and manage strong emotions successfully. It shares a method that's evidence based, walks you through how to use the approach step by step, and even comes with some principles to support your work.

Emma Shackleton: 5:01

So we'll put a direct link to the page on our website where you can download a copy for free. All you've got to do is open your podcast app while it's playing, click the info button, or scroll down the episode description, and you'll see a direct link. Make sure you grab your copy today.

Simon Currigan: 5:18

And while you've got that podcast app open, don't forget to share school behaviour secrets with your friends and colleagues. It really genuinely helps the podcast grow. And if you think about it, it was probably from someone sharing an episode on social media or through a word-of-mouth recommendation that you found us too. So to share the love in return, all you have to do is hit the share button on your podcast app when the episode is playing, and you'll be able to share it to whatever platform you like. Do it right now.

Emma Shackleton: 5:44

So now here's Simon's interview with Clare Williams from Hamish and Milo.

Simon Currigan: 5:49

I'm super excited to welcome Clare Williams to the show today. Clare is a primary teacher and educational psychotherapist, author, speaker, and advocate for children's mental health and well-being. She was the coauthor and cocreator of Jigsaw PSHE and is a senior trainer and supervisor for trauma informed schools UK. She's also worked in mental health and education provision and within child and adolescent mental health services and has led on national initiatives such as the social and emotional aspects of learning program, working as a consultant, leading on training curriculum, implementation, and development, as well as the local coordination of national PSHE CPD program. Clare is also an Optimus education well-being award adviser and the author of the Hamish and Milo Well-being Resources. Clare, you've clearly been a very busy person. Welcome to the show.

Clare Williams: 6:43

Alright. It's a real delight to be here. Thank you.

Simon Currigan: 6:46

Today, we're gonna talk about helping children with sadness. For most children, sadness in life is something that's a perfectly natural feeling that will come and go, but for others, it can be more problematic. As adults, how do we know the difference?

Clare Williams: 7:01

Do you know, I think it's really important to say at first that sadness is a very natural feeling and that we all do feel it at some points in our life, But unless children are supported with it and, you know, given permission to feel it and not feel alone with it, then it can place us on a long term road to depression and anxiety. And so as adults, we need to know the context for children. What's happening to them? Whether there's been a loss or an experience that might trigger a sadness or a sense of that either in the present or in the past. You know, it might be the loss of a pet or a person in the family. It might be divorce or separation or not seeing a parent anymore. So, you know, it's really difficult to know the difference, actually. But I think more importantly, we need to be vigilant as adults. We need be proactive in giving them time and the right environment to feel safe enough to share what's been happening to them and any losses and any sadness that's happened to them. When we know their context and children feel secure with them and we respond to them with a way of being supportive and compassionate, then they're able to express it. So I think it's a difficult one to know, but I think it's more about the relationships we have with them and helping them feel safe enough to be able to talk to us and be alongside us, and for us actually to be alongside them with whatever feelings they bring.

Simon Currigan: 8:21

Do you mind if we just unpack that a little bit? How do we practically get the kids to feel that sense of psychological safety with us so they're happy to talk about their feelings and opening up to us?

Clare Williams: 8:32

Well, I think it's absolutely a felt sense of being. You know, if that person is smiling, is, really welcoming to them, helps them almost feel through their eye contact that they're safe to be with and really wants that child to feel that they matter and that they belong. And I think it is something that we feel within us. And if children are kind of frightened or nervous or have feelings such as sadness, then I think as soon as they can shut down. And it's, about really helping them to feel that we're trustworthy, we are really compassionate, that we're kind. You know, it is kindness. It's absolutely about kindness and that the children will sense that from our body language, our our eye contact, just the way we are in the room with them. And it's something that we can't necessarily teach it. It's more about a sense of that. It's a hard one to unpick, actually, isn't it?

Simon Currigan: 9:24

It is. It is. And I know it's something that many of our listeners are interested in and can struggle with, because often the kids that need the help the most are the ones that are are most resistant to it. How might sadness present at school, in the classroom, and affect a child's learning and behaviour?

Clare Williams: 9:41

So I think, again, it's very individual for different children, but I think it really can present as feeling unhappy. Children might look and appear very tearful. They might be very clingy. They might present as being very withdrawn. And those children that are quite often alone or lonely, it can be something that they lack motivation, so they're really hard to draw in even if the environment is exciting. And they lack a real sense of joy or engagement in the world, really. So they can really present like that. But I think also it can affect our appetite. We sometimes don't eat so well if we're feeling sad. It kind of shuts us down. But I think there is another layer that some children can feel angry or volatile as well. Because it can really trigger that sense of defense if they are really deeply sad within. I think one of the other things that I've worked with with children is that sometimes they appear almost too happy for the situation they're in. So there is that real kind of paradox there. And that's why what I said earlier that it's so important that we notice that we're vigilant, that we understand the child's story so that we can be responsive to that. So, as you can see, it's a whole range of ways that that behaviour can present. And, you know, sometimes children feel very distant or even numb, disconnected to the situations that they're in and the environment they're in or very tired and lethargic. You know, sadness very much takes us over. It can block our capacity to really engage in the world And, you know, it also we know it shuts down the kind of thinking part of the brain and just makes you responsive in a fight, flight, freeze way. So, you know, you start to see those behaviours when sadness really takes hold.

Simon Currigan: 11:20

That's really interesting because when we think about fight, flight, and freeze, most often we're thinking about kids that are very, very angry or very, very anxious. But, of course, there are other emotional states that can bring that on for a child that's gonna impede the way they interact and thrive and succeed at school. Can you tell us about your approach to helping pupils understand what sadness actually is and and what they can do to manage those feelings of sadness? Because emotions are hard, aren't they? You're trying to connect feelings in your body to psychological labels, and that's tough for some kids.

Clare Williams: 11:52

Yeah. Absolutely. So in our program, we have a specific program around sadness called Finding Me. And we do this in a small group context with an adult that is that very compassionate, kind and enables that child or the group of children actually to feel that they can trust them. We help the children through being involved in activities, discussions and some sort of group tasks that just help them think about what sadness is and what it might look like. And we really do activities that are creative. So we might do, for example, one of my favorite activities actually, is called masquerade, where children create a mask, very much like you might at a masquerade ball with, you know, sequins and feathers and that kind of thing, which shows what the feeling is on the outside. What would people see if they were to meet you? And then the beauty of this activity is we take away that mask and we say, what's the hidden feeling? What might it look like? What color is it? What texture might it have? So what we're doing is then helping children to express things in a way that they perhaps might have not even been asked to before. So what we're really trying to do is help them feel safe enough to explore it, to reflect on it, to know that it's okay to have that feeling. And also, because they're in a small group setting, it's giving them the chance to know that other people feel it too. So it's normalising it to a degree without diminishing the power of it. And I think the other thing with sadness is that often people try to cheer children up. They jolly them along so that they don't allow them to stay with that feeling. And that's very different in our approach because we want to be able to say, you know, if you feel sad, it's a real feeling we've got to acknowledge. And you're not alone with that feeling. We're with you with that feeling, and I'm so sorry you're feeling that way. And it's about really opening up those conversations, really.

Simon Currigan: 13:38

I think that's a really key point that you just brought up there because often when we see kids who are feeling sad or a little down I mean, certainly, I've been guilty of this as a parent when my kids have been feeling a bit sad or something. I tried to sort of chivvie them up and cheer them up and distract them from their feeling. But I guess that kind of, from their perspective, the adult is diminishing what I'm feeling and not recognizing and acknowledging it as a serious thing. And and I guess the child then might wonder, is there something wrong with me for feeling this way because of the adult's reaction?

Clare Williams: 14:05

Absolutely that. And I think as parents, we wanna rescue, we want to quickly make them feel better. And, actually, if we can stay with that feeling, it's a really powerful communication to that child that, you know, any feeling you have is okay and I'm with you with that feeling and we can get through it and you can survive through it too. Because that's the other thing that we sometimes don't want to brush it aside. We want to say, actually, how do we empower children to have the feeling, but know it's survivable because that's a gift. That is a life gift.

Simon Currigan: 14:35

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think there are there are lots of adults who find it hard to sit with emotions. And maybe if they'd had that support earlier on in life, you know, they wouldn't be looking for distractions in in all other kind of different ways, you know, like alcohol or drugs or social media even. God help them. In your Hamish and Milo program, the kids make sock puppets, and they use the sock puppets to check-in at the beginning of the session and say how they're feeling. What made you take this approach, and what advantage does it give you?

Clare Williams: 15:01

Do you know what? The sock puppets are absolutely magical, and, they've now become a really integral part of the program. You know, some of our adults say, oh, the children, they're too cool for school. They're not really gonna buy into the puppet thing. And we're like, that's fine. You know, we don't ever force a child to do that, but we just say, let's just invite them to without any obligation. And do you know what? Just see what happens, and then the magic really happens. Because the children make their own that are individualised to them, so it's a kind of fun engaging activity. It starts to get them, you know, interested. And if the adult makes a sock puppet too and just becomes playful, then the child gets pulled into that kind of sense of fun as well and engagement. And then the real magic is when we help the children talk through the sock puppet. So they might tell us how the sock puppet is feeling. And, actually, of course, it gives us an insight into how they are feeling themselves. You know, one of the most beautiful quotes I had from a senco was, you know, the children are voicing things they've never voiced before through the puppets. And I just think, wow. That's when the magic's happened and allowed us to understand What's happening for the children. So it's a distancing technique. It's a way of using it therapeutically that also allows us to hear the inner world of the child in a way that doesn't mean that they're being judged or that they're on show. So that's the power. That's the magic. And really, I don't think I could have imagined that the sock puppets would be as powerful as they've been in our programmes.

Simon Currigan: 16:27

I love that. It's super simple, super powerful. Sometimes when we talk to pupils, they know though they may know that they feel sad, but what the adult is naturally going to then ask is, what do you feel sad about? And sometimes they find that hard to put into words. What do we do in that situation? What's the best way of supporting a child there?

Clare Williams: 16:45

Well, we really recognise that, you know, sometimes we do know what we're sad about, especially if something's happening at the time. You know, grandparent is ill or we've got a pet that's just died or even divorce or separation, we can feel sad about that. But, actually, sometimes sadness is kind of something that happened a while ago, and it's kind of embedded within and become integral to us, which we don't even know what we're sad about. And that's a really painful place for a child to hold on to a feeling that's never been able to be responded to or supported for them to feel those feelings. So if it does internalise, that does put a child in a very vulnerable position. And so through our programme, we really do give lots of different ways to explore those feelings and the feelings of others. So obviously, it's through the sock puppet pets. We might draw what sadness looks like, helping them to use creative activities to express themselves. And then through that, sometimes unconscious feeling comes out as well that we can then respond to and notice and acknowledge. And some of it's not about fixing it because we can't fix what's happened to a child. It's just about saying, actually, we're with you and we've seen what you're saying and acknowledged it. So it's validating their experience. Whatever that experience might be is actually huge. And we also know that the group experience of hearing other people that have got feelings like this or just it kind of resonates or it connects. They might feel like, oh gosh. Yes. That's something that I've thought about or I hadn't known I'd thought about it, but that rings true for me now. So, the group experience really helps them develop new friendships. And this is a huge step to children not feeling alone, not feeling lonely, and sometimes that can be very much the root of sadness. So I think the beauty of the resources and the programmes is the range of activities that children can use to think together, but have permission to feel the feelings that they're having that perhaps haven't been acknowledged before. So, you know, there's a real sense of relief in that if someone has seen and heard and understood you even for the first time. And so I think that's why it's so powerful for us to not shy away from this work and actually be able and prepared and have confidence to to run programmes like this that enable children to have a voice and to have their voice heard.

Simon Currigan: 18:57

You can really imagine in this approach the bonds building between the pupils and the adults in the room, actually. And I can imagine that having a significant impact on the way the child thinks about coming into school or starts to enjoy coming into school or there's a part of the school week that they start to look forward to where they're meeting, like, like minded kids knowing they're not on their own. Is that what you see in practice in schools?

Clare Williams: 19:21

We've seen that. And we've had, stories now of children coming to school on Hamish and Milo days when they've been emotionally school based avoidance, you know, issues around that and fear of coming into school. And I think it is that real nurture, that real sense of connection with a key adult and, you know, real relational practice that helps that child feel, you are so important to me. You matter. And the belonging, the sense of belonging that you have in a small group experience, for me, I think that is the kind of the bedrock of this whole approach. It would only work, you know, any program is only really ever as good as the adult that's running it. And I think that it's about relational practice. It's about how does that child feel in the presence of that adult and that space as well. Because also we try and create the room or if there's space, sometimes it's done in a corridor. You know, sometimes people have got a tiny cupboard that they're trying to work with a small group of children in a school. We know it's not ideal. But where it works beautifully is when they really do have a very safe place to come with with that key adult that they know. And it's almost like a little safety place, a haven, and then the real powerful work can follow. And I think the nurture is massive, that relational practice, but then really giving children opportunity to be taught about those social and emotional skills. So there's a real kind of depth of teaching, as well as responding, as well as listening and hearing and connecting. So it's very multifaceted and, it's exciting to see how this work is really, you know, being developed and and seen in the schools that we're working with.

Simon Currigan: 20:48

Can you give me a sense of the sort of qualities that key adults would need or would have to develop to to run this successfully? It sounds like they need to be very sort of socially and emotionally aware, but what kind of qualities that do they need to run to get the best out of the group?

Clare Williams: 21:01

So, of course, you know, it's something that many people just have a natural warmth, but not all of us have that. So there is a real need for self awareness but it is about that sense of compassion. It is about being able to be kind. It is about that capacity to empathise and to be able to not be phased by what children bring to you as well. So that an adult is able to hear and to not judge something or to try to, you know, like jolly children out of it but just able to respond and give empathy to what a child brings to that situation. I think empathy is huge, isn't it? I think when we validate a child's feeling and just sit with that and say, wow, I'm so sorry that you feel like that, but I'm really glad you told me, is a really powerful statement rather than saying, come on, let's try and see if we can change this or or sort this out or change it for you. It's more about being able to to be empathic and to be relational in that way. So it's it's relationships. And, I think there are some elements you can teach, but some of it's integral to who we are as people. And, hopefully, sort of the nurturing adults that are really powerful in this work have a kind of natural gift for it. But it's about then literally empowering them to be able to be valued in the work that they're doing as well. Because often it's the adults that are paid the least that, you know, are pulled into doing this work and aren't always valued. So I think one of the other layers of our work is how do we value those adults? How do we really show that they are supported, they are valued, that they are given the resources that empower them to feel that they can make a difference. Because if they're supported, empowered, and nurtured and supported too, then they are more equipped to be able to nurture those children. It's really powerful.

Simon Currigan: 22:45

In your programme, there's a lovely visualisation technique where the children picture a safe place in their mind. Can you talk us through and explain how it supports people to manage their emotions?

Clare Williams: 22:57

Yes. Of course. You know, we have to help children think about what sadness is, But then, we do have to give them some helpful strategies and techniques to sort of manage some of those feelings when they become difficult to manage. And, you know, we do this relationally, of course. But the safe place visualisation is a mindful technique that can be very powerful in allowing the children to create an image in their mind's eye, which is calming, which helps them to feel present, to feel kind of centred, to kind of help them breathe, to help them feel calm and regulated. So the activity very much does at first help them to breathe, to calm their body and their mind, and then to kind of call to mind this image that helps them feel safe, secure. It's a place that feels good and calming for them. So it might be something like, well, it can be even their bedroom. It can be, a scene like, you know, a beach. It can be something that is what's powerful for them. What we get the children to do then is notice the sensations that they're feeling within their body within that moment when they have that visual image and to notice how their senses are affected. So, what they might smell, what they might see, what they could touch. So, it really draws the image in and really creates a real depth to the image. And this is a an anchoring technique being able to bring something to mind. And then they can revisit that in times and be able to pull that sense of being back at times when they need it. So it's it's a very, very beautiful way of being able to manage some of the uncomfortable feelings that we might have and learning something that they can use again and again.

Simon Currigan: 24:33

If you're a teacher or a school leader listening to this podcast and you're working with kids in your class that you suspect that they've got persistent feelings of sadness, what's the first step you can take to towards helping them?

Clare Williams: 24:44

I think the first thing to say is know your children, you know, know what's happening or be curious and ask those questions, really, And then be very vigilant and create opportunities for them to talk to you or another key adult. So someone that's really good at relationships. Notice their friendships too and help them to be connected to someone that they can talk to or be with. I think it's about kindness, being curious, checking in with them regularly. So really building that sense of safety that we talked about right at the beginning because that's the first step before you do any of this deeper work.

Simon Currigan: 25:14

And you started talking about your approach, which is the Hamish and Milo approach. And it's not just about sadness, it's about supporting kids with a range of social and emotional learning. If our listeners want to find out more about the Hamish and Milo approach and using it in their school, can you tell us a little bit about how it works and how schools get access to it?

Clare Williams: Of course. So Hamish and Milo is a series of 10, actually. 10: 25:33

10 week programs around key emotion themes. So silence is 1, of course. Angry feelings is another. Change, transition, resilience, friendship, and self esteem. It's an SEMH intervention program, really, or an emotions curriculum, and it sits alongside PSHE. Our website, hamishandmilo.org, has so much more information about the program. And we've also got a digital dashboard called Navigator, which helps you track progress and show impact for groups of children and even individuals. So it's really relevant for reviewing IPs or EHCPs and provision mapping. So, you know, we also run fortnightly information sessions online for people to just come along and find out more. But it's lots of resources around those key emotion themes in a structured, but also very flexible approach to really teach the social emotional skills and respond to children's social emotional needs.

Simon Currigan: 26:25

And I'll put direct links to your website in the episode description for people that are interested. All you gotta do is tap on this episode as it's playing, and it will bring up a text description of the episode, and the link to the Hamish at Milo website will be there and waiting for you. Finally, we ask this of all our guests. Who is the key figure that's influenced you, or what is the key book that you've read that's had the biggest impact on your approach to working with children?

Clare Williams: 26:49

Do you know what? I could speak forever about this. I've got too many to really mention. It's so hard because I think there are multiple people that have influenced me and my work. But I think, you know, attachment theory, John Bowlby relationships is so, so powerful. It's connection and relationship that's at the very heart of everything we do to help children feel safe and secure and able to thrive. But other people, I think, are amazing are Bruce Perry, Dan Hughes, Dan Siegel. I can't really stop. So I think they're all wonderful, and there is such a lot around, you know, relationships and connection and safety. So I think, yeah, attachment theory, John Bowlby.

Simon Currigan: 27:23

Clare, it's like you're describing the bookcase behind me. Thank you for being on the show. You've shared such useful practical advice today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time.

Clare Williams: 27:32

Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure for me as well.

Emma Shackleton: 27:35

Oh, I really enjoyed that interview. Clare is so good and knowledgeable, and her advice is so practical.

Simon Currigan: 27:42

Yeah. I know. I'll put a direct link to her Hamish and Milo website in the episode description. If you think it would be useful to use in your school, open your podcast app now, and you can click or tap directly through.

Emma Shackleton: 27:54

And that's all we've got time for for today. I hope you find the content useful. And if you have, don't forget to leave us a rating and review. It'll take you 30 seconds and it will really help other listeners to find us. So thanks for doing that. We hope you have a brilliant week, and we can't wait to see you next time on School Behavior Secrets. Bye for now.

Simon Currigan: 28:13

Bye.