We are really pleased to launch our blog ‘Edinburgh Psychoeducation Intervention for Children and Young People’ (EPIC) today! Our website can be found here with downloadable resources to facilitate thinking, learning and wellbeing in children.
EPIC takes an individualised approach to child development with the aim of facilitating optimal learning, behaviour, well-being and mental health in children and young people. At the heart of the EPIC approach is understanding the individual child’s strengths and difficulties regardless of age, sex, or clinical diagnosis. There is a common saying ‘if you meet one autistic person you have met one autistic person’ – the same applies to other diagnoses such as ADHD and DCD. We have developed resources for parents and teachers that are available on our website. These resources are suitable for all children and young people, but may be particularly helpful for children with neurodevelopmental difficulties (e.g. ADHD, ASD, DCD/Dyspraxia) and children born prematurely.
During the last few years we have been developing an intervention with children, their parents and teachers. We are currently working with children undergoing ADHD assessment and autistic children. The intervention we have been developing is an 8 week 16 session school and home based intervention. EPIC is focused on psychoeducation involving the child, parent and teacher developing an understanding of the individual child’s strengths and difficulties. We then pair strategies with these difficulties and practice thinking skills using a range of games and activities. In early 2022, we will be extending this work out to children with DCD. In the meantime our resources highlight a lot of our activities with children and young people and can be used by parents and teachers outwith being involved in an intervention.
The booklets contain ideas for how to identify what the individual child’s strengths and difficulties are. Is there an attention difficulty? Or is the difficulty actually a memory or sensory processing problem that looks like a loss of concentration? Once this understanding is built up, the parent or teacher can use it to inform two key practices – psychoeducation and pairing of strategies to target areas.
The EPIC blog will include regular posts about child development particularly focusing on thinking and learning skills and wellbeing. Our work is evidence based but importantly posts will be written in a non-academic style to be useful to everyone. Please follow our blog http://www.epic-information.com and us on twitter @InformEpic to keep an eye out for our posts.
Visual production credits: SDI Productions via Getty Images
EPIC Think Learn 