Mike Beard Qualified human givens practitioner |
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Background Information: In essence, Mike's work now involves the practice and development of Having developed an interest in psychology and psychotherapy over many years, Mike began to combine private therapeutic practice and treatment with preventative education through work with the Personal, Social and Health Education team within Devon LEA. Essentially, this looked at how the 'emotional health and well-being' agenda could be met within schools in ways that were practical and pragmatic, and led to the development of established training programmes for both teachers and teaching assistants in ways to positively address mental health issues within schools. The work has since developed to combine reactive, therapeutic treatment with proactive, preventative education in a number of different areas within health and education, and this work is now developing nationally through REM State Limited. Mike's work in Kendal involves working therapeutically with young people who are resident within the organisation's specialist therapeutic schools; in addition to chaotic, traumatic (and often violent and abusive) early experiences in life, these young people may also have 'biological' conditions such as Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, Triplo-X Syndrome etc. etc. Mike's professional interests lie at either end of a 'therapeutic-education' continuum! At one end, he is particularly involved in developing brief and more effective therapeutic interventions for what are sometimes considered 'long term' and more 'intractable' mental illnesses such as eating disorders, psychosis etc. (particularly when those suffering these illnesses may be very young and/or have additional needs, or have experienced particular difficulties or traumas in their lives). At the other end of the spectrum, Mike is keen to develop (through mainstream education) the skills and abilities of all those involved in the care and education of young people to identify and work more effectively with the early signs of vulnerability — reducing the numbers of children who go on to experience mental illness and emotional difficulties in later life. A third area of interest for Mike is where these two areas may combine or be developed elsewhere! |
Professional |
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