St Christopher’s School and Children’s Home
(Bristol)
Policy on Promoting Independence
Ratified by Trustees
August 2015
Review date
August 2016
Introduction
Our pupils and young adults have severe and complex learning difficulties; some also
have mobility problems, all have language and communication difficulties and many are
diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Because of this our pupils and young
adults can be highly dependent on external support to fulfil their needs. As a result,
privacy can be hard to obtain in most aspects of their daily lives. Teaching them to
become more independent will give them more control over their lives, create more
opportunities for privacy, lead to better quality of life, prepare them for their life beyond
St Christopher’s and enhance their ability to make their own choices now and in the
future.
At St Christopher’s our work is based on the understanding that beyond their
disabilities, each young person has personal qualities and interests that they wish to
express and develop. High expectations from all staff, providing young people with
activities that are appropriate to their age and interests and valuing each one as an
individual for the special qualities they bring, all enable them to gain in independence
and self-esteem.
People with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in understanding social
situations and have poor self-awareness making it difficult to function in school, home
and community environments without support. Additional difficulties in thought
processing, communication, poor fine and/or gross motor skills and sensory processing
can also make achieving independence problematic.
We believe it is important to empower our young people through the teaching of selfhelp and life skills. It is essential that they be given planned opportunities to acquire
independence in order to develop self-esteem and confidence throughout life. This is
done through assessment and target setting as well as general awareness of “doing
with”, rather than “doing for” provided by 1:1staff support in both House and school.
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Young people are given frequent opportunities to achieve at their own level of ability
with or without minimal adult support and opportunities are given for this learning to be
generalised and consolidated.
It is necessary to be respectful of sensory difficulties, fears, phobias and anxieties that
may impinge on the teaching of skills that promote independence. It is acknowledged
that this may be particularly prevalent when working on toileting and eating skills or
accessing the community.
Pupils' independence encompasses:

Occupying themselves with independent activities

Carrying out daily tasks with minimal support

Self- help tasks e.g. eating, drinking, personal care, dressing, going to the
toilet

Moderating their own behaviours

Able to generalise skills e.g. in a different setting, with different people etc.

Making choices, including food and drinks at meal times, snacks, etc

Setting the pace of non-independent activities

Communicating needs

Ability to be alone

Initiating communication/activity

Influencing / controlling their own environment

Receiving ‘payment’ for work experience and using money to pay for
shopping of chosen items
Becoming more independent enhances the young person’s quality of life!
Curriculum Context
Promoting Independence comes under the extended curriculum area of Personal,
Social and Health Education (PSHE). This area of the curriculum is seen as the main
focus of the “waking day curriculum”. It permeates all activities, both within the school
and Houses, to ensure that there is a generalisation of skills across environments, as
this is a crucial element in the development of independence. (See policy on PSHE).
We use P Levels to formally assess pupils' levels of ability set targets accordingly.
All pupils have Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Individual Learning Plan (ILP) targets
and methods for working towards in school and in the residential setting to ensure
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consistency and continuity. Parents receive copies of IEP/ILPs, so that when possible
new skills could be transferred and maintained at home.
There is emphasis on developing independence in ways that are appropriate to young
people’s age. Progression is built into the development of independence through
appropriate target setting by gradual reduction of adult direction, increased subtlety of
structure and prompts, direct teaching situations, increased opportunities within and
external to St Christopher’s, and structured opportunities to develop and practice
decision making and problem solving skills.
Young people with severe and complex learning difficulties have low levels of (and
many have no) awareness of danger. Staff are required to plan situations that allow
young people to be increasingly independent without a risk to their safety and well being.
There are general risk assessments for various situations and waking day curriculum
activities. In addition to those, individual pupils’ risk assessments are completed as
required. These will also take into account the nature of an autistic spectrum disorder
and how this has impacted on the individual .e.g. fears, phobias, etc.
Main Area of Focus
Depending on their abilities and skills pupils are encouraged to take an active part in the
daily life of the Houses and school. The main areas of focus in the Houses are
dressing, toileting, mealtimes, personal hygiene, care of the environment, use of public
amenities and road safety. There are joint targets for personal and social development
- mainly developing social interaction - and these are agreed on by the key care staff
and teacher. The IEPs are broken down into long term and short term targets to enable
the pupils to achieve the long term targets in smaller steps. The IEPs are assessed
weekly and formally evaluated every six months.
Opportunities to Generalise Skills
People with autism have difficulties in generalising skills learned in one context to
another, therefore any programme that develops pupils' independence skills includes
opportunities to practice these skills in a range of contexts. The ”waking day”
curriculum is very conducive to enabling pupils to transfer skills within a variety of
environments, e.g. a pupil working on a specific eating skill in their residential House will
transfer this skill into other situations such as snack time in the class room or when
going to a café with their carer. Pupils who develop specific self-help skills e.g.
fastening a zip, are then given the chance to practice these skills with a range of zips
and garments.
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Visual Prompts
The use of carefully designed and individualised visual cues is central to enabling pupils
to understand the task presented to them. In addition to clarifying tasks, visual cues act
as an unobtrusive prompt to pupils. Visual picture or photo sequences (work systems)
support the young person to carry out a task with minimal or no staff help, thus
increasing their independence.
In some classrooms pupils have independent work-stations where they can learn to
complete tasks independently with minimal disruption. The emphasis would then be on
completing a familiar task without any support, rather than on learning a new skill.
Learning Routines and Rules
Routines are established with clear transition symbols, to enable pupils to understand
what is expected of them, for example when going to the swimming pool, using a towel
as a signal it is time to go. (For more details please refer to Policy on Provision for
Specific Needs of Pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorders).
Giving Pupils Strategies to Structure their own Life
A wide variety of strategies are used to structure pupils' working environment and
promote pupils’ taking responsibility for organisation of work and materials. These
strategies include:

Use of structured teaching principles: visual schedules, work systems

Workstations

Familiar daily routines/ chores in the House/class room e.g. laying the table

Opportunities for making choices throughout the waking day e.g. menu choices,
activities
Communication and Social Interaction
Communication is taught throughout St Christopher’s day with a strong emphasis on
pupils taking initiative to communicate. The Picture Exchange Communication System
(PECS) enables pupils to initiate requests e.g. choosing what clothes they want to wear,
or leisure activities. A range of other visual and audio supports are available and
introduced to pupils, as appropriate. (Please refer to policy on Language and
Communication).
Intensive Interaction enables pupils to gain an initial sense of how two-way interactions
work. DIR Floor-time principles are gradually being introduced to care and teaching
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staff. These give a developmental, person-centred framework for teaching children and
young people how to engage in social interaction.
Essential Approaches and Attitudes to be Used by Staff to
Promote Pupils' Independence:
Work with the pupil in an empowering mode:

Every activity that a supportive adult does with a child or young person is
potentially on a range of ‘empowering' through to 'disempowering'. Have the
mind-set of working 'with' them rather than 'doing for' them. Where the task is
unavoidably 'doing for' e.g. giving a hand massage, putting on a hoist harness,
pushing a swing, give them opportunities to set the pace, e.g. are you ready?; do
you want some more? Create opportunities for the young person to take the
initiative (e.g. PECS work). Sometimes the best use of 1:1 staffing is to
attentively stand back.

Always ask yourself - could they be doing some of this themselves? e. g. lifting
foot for shoe on, pushing through a sleeve, etc.

It is important to recognise that preferences might change over time. Therefore,
adults supporting a child or young person must not assume that once a
preference/choice has been made this will be static. The child or young person
must be given opportunities to confirm their preferences/choices on a regular
basis.
Be mindful of every physical or verbal prompt or support given:
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
Think of ultimately making yourself redundant. Any prompting which becomes
part of a learnt process will ideally, at some stage in the future, need to be
phased out, so think carefully before introducing them.

Physical prompting (for a hand activity) to start as far away from the hand as
possible i.e. upper arm, elbow, lower arm then finally (if all else fails) hand over
hand. As the young person masters the activity, you can phase out support
backwards, i.e. from full support to light support.

Verbal prompting to be as short, simple and consistent as possible. Compare
e.g. 'hold' (a one key word instruction) with "hold the ball and put it in the bucket"
(a 4- 5 key word instruction). Once an instruction is given don't change the
language e.g. don't change "hold" to "pick it up, reach out, take it".

Do not inadvertently create dependence.
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Support young people’s ability to succeed:
Success breeds confidence, good self-esteem, motivation, independence.

Stress, fear, anxiety can be paralysing.
The supporter's good relationship with the young person and the young person’s
ability to make sense of their immediate environment and to moderate their own
behaviours are all vital for their sense of inner security, safety and trust. Working
with the methods that St Christopher’s staff are trained in, such as Intensive
Interaction are a key component of this relationship building enabling you to be
with the young person, in the moment, meeting them where they are at, and then
guiding them to new experiences and success.
In tasks that may require two members of staff to support a pupil, one person will
take the lead, and the other will be a silent support. This ensures clarity for the
young person and supporting staff and the relationship is not jeopardised.
For many young people receiving, processing and acting on sensory stimulation
is impaired. Sensory Integration therapy and ‘sensory diet’ activities (offered by
the occupational therapist) are also helpful in reducing stress. These approaches
can be helpful in enabling the young person to accept a range of sensory
stimulation without feeling overwhelmed, confused or out of control. We need to
ensure/be aware of not overloading with a variety of sense perceptions i.e. using
one sensory channel at a time.
Proactive Behaviour Guidelines and agreed responses should help the person to
regulate their own behaviours where possible and reduce dependence on
intervention.
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
Give the young person time to engage, remembering that they have to
become aware of the stimulus, register what it means, organise themselves
mentally and physically to respond and then respond.

Be thoughtful of unnecessary praise. Mainly let the activity be the reward
where possible (i.e. the switch produces music, the touch-screen produces an
animation, the item dropped in a bucket makes a noise, the guitar strummed
plays music) so the young person does not become too dependent on social
praise for motivation and self-esteem.

Make activities engaging by modelling or working alongside, to help the
young person to want to do the task. Tap into subjects/activities that individuals
are naturally interested in. These will motivate them to engage in new
activities/learn new skills.
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
Encourage their ability to anticipate i.e. supporting a task by breaking it up into
a repetitive sequence of steps and inviting the young person to complete it in
order to facilitate independent completion e.g. reach, hold, in, next; reach, hold,
in, next.

Use the principle of backward-chaining, i.e. for a task which involves several
stages, let the young person see you do the first stages and help them to
succeed with the last stage; they then get the reward of the job completed. Then
help them to do the penultimate stage AND the last stage, etc until they finally
learn the first stage of the task.

Make the environment supportive of independent success - reduce
distractions and sensory clutter e.g. work area visually uncluttered, physically
uncluttered, minimal noise disturbance.

Ensure the level of challenge of the task matches the young person’s level of
ability, and can even extend it when appropriate.

Support receptive and expressive communication e.g. PECS, visual
schedules, photo cards, symbols, objects of reference, Makaton signing.
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