Research & Collaboration at Hill House School
We are proud to share that one of our recent research collaborations with ACoRNS (Autism Community Research Network) at the University of Southampton has now been published. This project focused on the challenges many children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) face during school transitions. Moving to a new school can often bring anxiety around meeting new people, navigating unfamiliar spaces, and adapting to new routines.
To address this, the study explored the use of co-created virtual school tours with two special schools supporting children with complex learning and communication needs.
ACoRNS
ACoRNS is an initiative which seeks to improve the lives of young people with autism and is a unique collaboration between Education and Psychology at Southampton University and local nurseries, schools and colleges who are interested in developing, researching, understanding and sharing good practice in educational provision for autistic children and their families. They believe that the best way for autism research and practice to genuinely meet the needs of children and young people in the local community, is to involve the local community from the start.
ACoRNS are striving to meet their aims through:
involving autistic children and young people at the centre of research and practice;
establishing a co-constructed research agenda for identifying, investigating and implementing evidence-based practices in autism education
building a collaborative partnership between the University of Southampton, professionals, schools, families, early years providers, and children and young people
One of ACoRNS main focuses is in understanding more about the trajectories and transitions of autistic children and young people. They want to know more about how to most effectively support children’s progress through school and enable them to have positive experiences. They also want to establish best practice for supporting children and families in making transitions, whether that be from home to school, from the classroom to the playground, or between and beyond stages of schooling.
Regulation and Reflection
Hill House is also working on a project with a student who is completing their Education Psychology Doctorate at Southampton University. The project is called; 'Developing Autistic young peoples' emotional regulation skills: A case study of a residential special school'.
Staff at Hill House are working with the University to look at gaining an understanding of how the young people communicate and manage their emotions using the 'Zones of Regulation'.
The Value of Research
Being a partner of ACoRNS and the collaboration with Southampton University enables Hill House to be outward facing. It encourages innovation and enables the school to work alongside a range of professionals in different settings.
The work also provides valuable opportunities for key development areas to be evaluated so that we have clear outcomes of these interventions, enabling us to continue to grow and develop and provide the best possible opportunities for all our young people.
We are currently involved in projects that ACoRNS are leading with and are paired with Psychology Masters students and Educational Psychology Doctorate students who support us to complete these projects.
Research Opportunities
Digital 'I Am' Stories
We have been focussing on the use of Digital Stories to support young people from Hill House School to move successfully into their new adult home.
Digital Stories consist of a short video about the young person. The stories are based mainly on child-led interests and exploration rather than adult-directed prompts or staged activities. Digital storytelling is developed from the ideas of Lambert who argues that digital stories are natural vehicles for understanding and reflection and for creating meaning, as well as enabling voice, agency and a sense of belonging. Children’s voices and views are, therefore, at the centre of the research through highlighting their unique trajectories via individual digital stories.
The stories illustrate both the positive experiences and the challenges that children and their families face as well as model how these challenges are mitigated by school-based processes. It is vital that Digital Stories are co-created with the child/young person, families, teachers and their current support staff.
We created 3 Digital Stories over the course of a year with support from the ACoRNS team, who then wrote up all of the findings as part of their research.
There is a framework that can be followed to support with creating Digital Stories.
We created a 'Day in the Life' video story for each young person who was moving on from Hill House so that their new team could watch this and learn all about them before they moved in. Video footage is so powerful and can provide so much more than reports and paperwork. So often paperwork for moves focuses on what individuals are unable to do and about behaviour that challenges. As much as it is important to share that information, the Digital Story allows people to see all the things that the individual is able to do and excel at and enables young people to have a voice and be part of their moving plan.
The process:
The process involves identifying the individual the Digital Story is for, discussing it with their family, social workers, the young person (where appropriate) and staff team, discussing the plan at pre-admission meetings, introducing the use of Digital Stories as part of the new placement, completing a Mental Capacity Assessment and Best Interest Meeting where required, and obtaining signed consent to participate in the ACoRNS research.
Mapping
Create a mind map about the child/young person: what they like, enjoy, dislike, and the things they find more challenging. Talk to family and staff teams to gather a range of views. If the child is able to communicate their views, theirs should be the dominant voice.
Filming
Using the ACoRNS digital stories “I am..” framework, plan where you will take your videos. The focus is on environments and activities that are meaningful for the child. Once planned, take some video clips of the child over a few weeks or months. With younger children it can be interesting for them to use a ‘wear cam’ to gain footage from their perspective, and height! Footage should always be stored securely on site.
Describing
Use the mind map and the video footage to describe the child in short statements from their point of view based on the digital Stories ‘I am...’ framework.
Editing
Use the ‘I am...’ descriptions to select video clips that best show the characteristics or behaviours of the child. Try to present the views and perspective of the child as meaningfully as possible.
Research Opportunities
Results
As a result of the digital story work with ACoRNS, all young people moving on from Hill House now have the opportunity to develop their own digital `I AM` story and this now forms a key part of their moving plan.
Examples below include a digital story that was developed for a young person moving on from Hill House, as well as an article in the SEN magazine all about the Hill House digital story work