Aimed at:

• Young people struggling to describe their emotions
• Supporting young people to identify some of their feelings before, during and after offending
• Supporting young men to explore the negative impact of patriarchal attitudes on their offending behaviour
• Supporting young people to look at the impact of their emotions on their negative behaviour as well as offending behaviour

Intended Outcomes:

• Support young people in increasing emotional literacy and Intelligence.
• An understanding of the way in which emotions have impacted on their behaviour (offending or otherwise).
• For the young person to challenge previous ways of managing emotions.
• Explore the benefits of discussing and showing emotions.
• Recognition of the negative impact of impulsive reactions to limited information.
• Open new possibilities with regard to who to talk through problems and issues.
• Develop new tactics to deal with heightened emotional states and dealing with other emotions at an early stage to prevent aggression being the only outlet of other emotions. 

Description:

The pack contains a selection of intervention materials to use with young people to support them to explore the impact of emotions on their behaviour

• The first section ‘identifying emotions and links to offending’ explores the way in which emotions have a role in all aspects of offending.
• The second section ‘emotions and gender stereotypes’ explores gender attitudes toward displaying and outward showing of emotions.
• The ‘feelings cards’ are to print, cut and laminate and use in conjunction with these first two work packs.
• ’How Angry...’ section is a scaling anger exercise which also looks at altering thinking to reduce aggressive behaviour.
• ‘Who to talk to…’ section is a worksheet that explores who the young people can access to discuss their emotions as a method of diffusing those negative emotions
• ‘Reusable materials... (Who to talk to)’ are to print, cut and laminate and use with the final work pack. 

What makes it work:

• The materials support a multi modal style of working, they can either be put together with other managing emotions/anger management materials to form a focused piece of work or they can be utilised individually on more specific factors.
• The materials are varied and should cater to different learning styles.
• The materials allow the space for young people to challenge themselves and their views.
• The materials should support the young people to look at other ways to manage their emotions in a less negative way.     

Implementing the Practice:

• Practitioners should ensure that they are familiar with the content prior to running sessions with young people (there is guidance on the front of each pack).
• It would be beneficial for the practitioner to have completed motivational interviewing skills in order to support the young people to really assess some of their own thought patterns.
• Practitioners should add/remove the ‘cut out’ material cards as appropriate for individual young people.
• Have fun; deliver session with humour, good spirits and at an appropriate pace, do not get bogged down in sections and in probing answers where it is not necessary.

Contacts: