It is more important than ever before that teaching professionals feel confident in their ability to support young people with tics in the classroom. There has been a rise in the number of tics and Tourette’s cases presenting in young people, over the last few years. Tics can appear for a variety of reasons be that Tourette’s, a chronic or transient tic disorder, FND, PANDAS, or another cause, at the end of the day all students with tics need teaching staff that are able to support them effectively. This is why we have designed a CPD-Certified course to help teaching staff feel empowered to support young people, either in a classroom or a group setting. Our course, Tics in the classroom, is worth 3 hours of CPD credit and can be studied at your own pace or as part of a half day of live training. Our self-study course is administered through four short, pre-recorded presentations and quizzes, to aid in easy step-by-step learning followed by a graded final assessment that you can easily fit around your work/ life schedule. By enrolling you will gain an understanding of tics, the commonly co-occurring conditions, and knowledge of support strategies you can put into place.
It is estimated that around 1 in 100 school children have Tourette’s or a tic disorder, which translates to 1% of all school children. Despite how common tics are, there is often a lot of misunderstanding around what support a student might need and be entitled to. Our aim is to ensure all teaching professionals feel empowered to support students with tics.
For some young people, the school environment can increase their tics, for others they may suppress tics until they return home which can make homework more difficult. It is vital for professionals to understand how the school environment can impact on tic severity and frequency. For a student, tics of any kind can have an impact on their ability to carry out school work, maybe they have neck jerking or eye rolling tics that make reading hard, or they might have writing tics that affect their ability to make notes. Having someone to take notes for them or extra time to finish assignments are accommodations that a student with these tics would benefit from, although it is not uncommon for students to not want to stand out in front of their peers and so reject these types of support. There are a whole host of possible accommodations that could be used, but it is important the young person feels comfortable with the support being put in place and knows how to make the best use of it.
In addition to tics, there is often more going on below the surface which cannot be seen, this might be a co-occurring condition such as OCD, anxiety, sensory overload/seeking, ADHD, or even internal tics.
Many young people with tics also have to deal with pain and fatigue as a part of their condition. Sometimes the co-occurring conditions/symptoms can be more difficult for a student than the tics themselves. This is why it is important to involve the young person in any support plans made to ensure you are putting support in the right places and that they will accept.
If there are multiple students with tics or they are very noticeable it may be worth considering educating all teaching staff on how to support young people with tics as giving isolated training to only one staff member is likely not enough for full support to be given.
We want you to feel empowered and confident in supporting young people with tics, we hope this course helps to give you a well-rounded understanding of the various support needs a student might have.
It is also important to note that despite this course being designed for teaching staff. Nurses, therapists, social workers and even parents have been accessing the course with much satisfaction.
To learn more about the course including costings, bookings and reviews please follow this link: www.tictocktherapy.co.uk/professionalcourses
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