An insight to SEMH: A new journey

Hello everyone! Well, what can I say, it's obviously been a long time since I was last active on here. And there are 2 reasons why...

I suppose the 1st one being I couldn't be bothered.

The 2nd one, however, is because I now have a weekday job in a SEMH school. To be more precist, I began this new job on the 25th of November of last year.

Since I have a day of nothing today, (which rarely happens anymore these days!😂) I thought I'd make use of it by utilizing the time to make this post. 

As the above title states, I will be talking about the 'ins & outs' of SEMH. I will also be sharing how much I have learned about SEMH.

You're probably asking: "What does SEMH stand for?"

SEMH stands for Social, Emotional & Mental Health.

Now you're asking: "What is Social, Emotional & Mental Health?"

Social, Emotional & Mental Health is a complex mental health condition, where people experience significant struggles with managing their behaviour & emotions. Alongside this, they may show inappropriate behaviour & language when it comes to reacting to a demand that they do not want to do. An example of this could be being told to undertake 3 pages of Maths work.

A person with SEMH will often feel anxious & insecure most of the time, as they feel like they are no good at anything due to all of the trauma, humiliation & shame that they have experienced whilst growing up. Moreover, they will most likely feel intimidated by other people who seem "normal" to them. Or even try to compare themselves to any "normal" person.

In no way at all are people with SEMH bad with an unruly attitude, they are simply scared by all of the trauma & abuse that they have been through in their early stages of life. Even I can say for myself that I've seen/heard people with SEMH do incredible things! For example, they can obtain phenomenal knowledge about an industry that they are interested in. Especially the practical industries.

It is essentially mindful to know when you encounter a person with SEMH being dysregulated, they are NOT doing it with the intention of choosing to cause disruption. They are in that emotional state, because they have no other coping mechanisms. This is what is known as a "fight or flight" response.

All in all, people living with SEMH want to be like other people, as well as to be able to do things that other people do. In my opinion there isn't nearly enough SEMH awareness out there, so this is half the reason why I have made this post.

For those of you who have found this topic/post interesting, thank you for reading through, and I do plan on making more posts associated with SEMH in the future. 

Just bare in mind that I am only 3 months into this journey, so I wouldn't say I obtain a professional knowledge. I am still in the process of learning something new about SEMH everyday whilst at work. As for somebody who has been into psychology for 6 years now, I am very much looking forward to be riding on this journey...

How working at Disability Challengers feels so rewarding

Hello everyone! I cannot believe it's now the 1st of March already?! I swear NYD still felt like it happened yesterday?!

Anyway, enough hyperbole. I know it's been a month since I was last active on here, as my work-life is heavily getting in the way of that. Especially with my new job. However, I have an unexpected day off work today, so I thought I'd make an appearance back on here again.

As the above title states, I feel like I should talk about how rewarding my job at Disability Challengers is, as well as how does it personally make me feel rewarded.

For those of you who have never heard of Disability Challengers, it is a charity-based job where it primarily consists of interacting with children with disabilities, as well as providing them with fun activities.

And as the company name states, every child comes with a unique set of behaviours. Hence I also manage those children's behaviours whilst having fun interacting with them on scheme.

Working at Disability Challengers feels so rewarding for me, as I am (let's not leave out my colleagues/friends here as well!) providing a safe, playful & overall fun environment for our service users. The backstory of this reason is due to the fact that they may have nowhere else to go & have fun, as other people view their disability as a burden.

I personally like to vision myself as a superhero at the end of every shift. This is because helping people helps me to become a better person in life, and I tend to thrive on the very thought of me visioning myself as a "superhero".

In fact, the last 10 months I have been working at Disability Challengers has made me develop into a more better person. Both physically & mentally. This is because I had the pleasure of working alongside some amazing & all round lovely people, (particularly on the schemes I work at) who accept me for who I am as a person, which help me to gain more confidence when working as a team.

*I began this post on the 1/3/24, but didn't finish it until the 2/3/24*