A Review of Connect: A Personal , Social and Health Education (PSHE) wellbeing curriculum


Connect is a Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) wellbeing curriculum for primary school children aged 4-11. The curriculum consists of weekly lessons that aim to teach children skills to promote emotional wellbeing and resilience. The work is based on the DNA-V model by (Hayes & Ciarrochi, 2015).

Why is a Speech and Language Therapist testing out a PSHE curriculum you ask? Well that’s a valid question…. As a Speech Therapist with an interest in Acceptance Commitment Therapy and supporting the social emotional health of young people, I was really interested in the free trial of this resource to see if I could learn from it. I also wondered whether I can use this as a clinician, would there be a way this could be adapted or used jointly between the teaching staff and I to support the mental wellbeing, language and communication skills of our young people? So the following is my honest review. 

Disclaimer: At no point were we approached to review Connect, nor have we been given anything in return for this review. This is an honest review of something we wanted to look at in greater depth. 

Free Trial Details

Currently Connect are offering a 7 day free trial which gives you more than enough time to complete their training, look at the lesson plans and resources and decide whether you think this is worth investing in. You do not need to enter any bank details to access the free trial. 

My Experience 

The first thing I did was access the training. I had heard really good things about it, then I had a look around the lesson plan section and the toolbox...

Training

They recommend doing the training with a colleague or in a group of colleagues, which I wasn’t able to do but understand their reasoning for (particularly in module 4 &5) and wish I had the opportunity to do this with others. 

The training covers 5 Modules, all of different lengths but combined take around 3 hours to complete. The modules are:

  1. PSHE & Mental Health
  2. The Principles of Human Learning
  3. 5 Ways to Wellbeing
  4. ACT & DNA-V
  5. Introducing the Connect Curriculum

The training was clear, scaffolded on previous information and used minimal slides, opting for instead more ‘face to face’ contact. The trainers, Dr. Duncan Gillard and Dr. Nic Hooper,  described and taught listeners a lot of important behavioural terminology such as shaping and reinforcement, which are vital skills for SaLTs and educators to understand. They explained the difference between reinforcement and rewards and then onto the wider DNA-V model with relatable and personal examples. The pace was good and the content was clear and related clearly to module titles. 

There was a good amount of discussion regarding the research behind the model they use (DNA-V) and behind the theory (ACT) and a commitment to researching their own application of this which is an absolute must for anything I use in therapy. This also highlights the importance of ensuring that what we are doing is effective. 

The training contained experiential exercises for listeners to carry out (which is particularly difficult to do alone) which is such an important part of ACT. There was also an opportunity to pause the video and check out the lesson plans, but it would have been nice to see an example of a lesson recorded to watch. 

Forum

Something that was said about the forum was that it is a ‘really important part of Connect functioning’. The forum is where you can interact with the creators of Connect and was mentioned in the training as a feature to use. They seemed very committed to receiving feedback and adapting tools as needed. It was really positive to see how open and committed to developing Connect they are.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to access the forum (this could be because it isn't included in the trial, or a technical issue on my side), but I really like the idea of being able to talk with others and share questions and examples and have such a responsive team on the other side. 

Lesson Plans

I was able to have a look at the lesson plan for each year group (YES! They are differentiated per year group and not just repackaged). The lesson plans were clear and simple to follow and had bright and engaging visuals to compliment the lesson powerpoint. Each lesson plan was accompanied by a powerpoint and any other resources needed in one place. Because of this, I wondered if it would be possible to adjust fairly easily for remote teaching as well. 

I think there are huge benefits to semi-manualising programmes, this ensures that the programme is delivered more effectively and reminds me of the manualised and semi-manualised programmes that I use in practise (such as Direct Instruction and Story Champs), which free up my time to enable me to focus on delivering good quality intervention and enjoy my time with the clients. I can see that these lesson plans could free up a lot of teacher time and reduce stress, enabling them to prepare for the lesson in less time and spend quality time with the students in the class during the lessons. As a clinician working with the teacher, I could see less time spent on planning the content and more on planning individual supports for the children, or more time to reflect afterwards. Working in schools, there is such little time for this. 

As mentioned above in the training section, I would have liked to see one delivered to reflect on how I might implement the lesson plan myself.

Overall

Everything was easy to find on the website and well laid out. It was very clear to navigate and to follow. The training was excellent, the lesson plans well organised and laid out and most importantly the programme itself is based on well researched principles AND Connect themselves are continually evaluating the programme itself. 

As a clinician, I would have liked to see some sort of measurement or outcome tool, however the programme is a whole school programme so I can see how this might not fit in with this model. The programme is also not created for my role, but I took so much from it. 

Applying Connect to Speech and Language Therapy

I think that Connect relates to our field in various ways:

  • Supporting children’s language skills so that they can express themselves.
  • Supporting children’s language skills so that they can learn new behaviour skill sets to improve their wellbeing. 
  • Promoting children and young people's mental health (RSCLT, 2020; RCSLT No Date)
  • We know CYP with SLCN are at higher risk of poor mental health (NICE, 2016) therefore anything that looks at supporting this population is our interest to at least know about and understand, even if we don’t implement it. 
  • Relating to yourself and others, and learning these new behaviours such as DNA (the acronym used in the programme), requires the use of quite sophisticated language at times and we are the experts in language!

So we can see how this relates to speech and language therapy, but where could SaLTs fit in:

  • The training offered by Connect (especially Section 4) is very relevant to our practice. I highly recommend checking out training in ACT and DNA-V if you work with children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs. 
  • As the curriculum is designed for typically developing primary school children, we could adapt materials to better support clients and support the adaptation of the programme for these clients in mainstream schools. 
  • Co-teaching and delivering this as part of a universal tier/whole school intervention alongside teachers would be a match made in heaven. 


What am I going to do now? 

So I’ve completed the free trial and I’ve been thinking about what the next steps are for me. I found the training valuable and can see how I could slot in to support the delivery of the programme, but at the moment there isn’t a clinical need for me to deliver this personally to my caseload. So my next steps are as follows:

  • Share this with my employer and the staff that I work with as a proposal, this would be an excellent curriculum to support students. I could also support in the adaptation of materials as needed and even co-teach some lessons. 
  • Share with our readership (that’s you guys reading this)
  • Reflect more on how to embed ACT/DNA-V practices into my way of working

Final Comments

I would really like to thank everyone at Connect for all the hard work they have put into such a well designed curriculum to support the mental health of children and young people. Most importantly, I really value their commitment to ensuring that this is based on research and remains effective by continually researching the programme: THIS is the kind of thing I want to see in every field. Please keep up the amazing work. 

I would recommend that any clinician that works in education or has a caseload that includes children and young people with social emotional and mental health needs should have a look at this programme. This is an easy to use, evidence based curriculum. Those working in alternative provision settings may find it particularly helpful. The curriculum is not designed for SaLTs, but I think there are definitely things we can take from it as clinicians and it could support some really wonderful joint-working with teaching staff. If you are in a position of influence in the school or if you are an educator reading this please do check this out! Our response to the pandemic should include a robust plan for ensuring we are all equipped to identify and support children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs. This programme may help you and your school or company to do just that. 

If you’ve tried Connect and you want to share your thoughts with us, please get in touch via our website or on Twitter! 

You can also find connect here: https://www.connect-pshe.org and on twitter: @ConnectPSHE






References

Hayes, L. L. & Ciarrochi, J. (2015). The Thriving Adolescent: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Positive Psychology to Help Teens Manage Emotions, Achieve Goals, and Build Connection. Connect Press: US.

NICE (2016). Early years: promoting health and wellbeing in under 5s (Quality Standard). [Online]. Available at: https://www.nice.org.uk/ guidance/qs128

RCSLT. (No Date.). Supporting social, emotional and mental health and wellbeing Factsheet. Accessed 15/02/2021 from: https://www.rcslt.org/wp-content/uploads/media/docs/RCSLT_SEMH_A4_2019_Web_Singles.pdf?la=en&hash=1DDE04F06D86CCA9C3A4E537EEA96468A5632767

RCSLT. 2020. Supporting Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services FactSheet. Accessed 15/02/2021, from: https://www.rcslt.org/speech-and-language-therapy/clinical-information/social-emotional-and-mental-health/#section