Unlocking Future Potential and Inspiring Forward Motion.

Supporting schools and families to effectively tackle the avoidance problem.

Welcome to Fascination Coaching. We are a Devon based, non-profit Community Interest Company. We support schools and families in working better together to improve the school experience and in challenging school avoidance.

We support change through the exploration and promotion of a better understanding of avoidance, how to prevent it and how to respond more effectively to it.

We encourage improved collaborative relationships between families and schools. Through relationships based on trust, patience and understanding, you can safely explore the child's reasons behind their avoidance and kick start their journey through avoidance.

Moving through avoidance patterns is easiest when schools and families work well together. Many of the reasons for avoidance, if caught early enough, can be 'nipped' in the bud. Non-judgmental, open communication and temporary reasonable adjustments can often be enough to get things moving again.

Sometimes the reasons begin at home, sometimes they begin at school, sometimes in the community or with their peers. It doesn't matter so much where and how it starts, what matters is how we respond to it. The quicker we intervene, the better.

Avoidance can start from the smallest of incidents that just tip the balance from coping into a state of overwhelm. This sense of overwhelm left unaddressed can start to gather pace like a rolling ball. The longer the ball rolls, the more momentum it gathers and the bigger it gets. Often it doesn't take long for the avoidance to become habitual and harder to shake.

Sometimes we get stuck, sometimes things feel impossible and sometimes things feel like they might never change. So, we avoid the things that make us feel uncomfortable.

To be fascinated is to be in a state of intense interest. To be in awe of what could be. When we get stuck, we quickly forget the promise of what the future can hold for us.

As well as promoting an improved understanding of avoidance and the benefits of relational working, we also deliver hopeful, optimistic, skills and values-based coaching.

We endeavour to support the child in the safe exploration of what is preventing them from moving towards what matters to them. We help to get them fascinated, to get them interested again and we help them to find a new way forward.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and avoidance

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an established coaching and therapy model. Note - We only use it in a coaching context. ACT shares the same roots as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). ACT takes a more holistic approach and adds mindfulness, acceptance, visualisation and personal values into the mix.

ACT suggests that two things get in the way for many of us. These two things are:

• Cognitive Fusion. Or getting hooked by our thoughts and feelings. A bit like getting lost in a maze and knowing the exit is there somewhere, but no matter how hard you look you just can't find it. It becomes more and more frustrating (and overwhelming) as you go around and around. It becomes exhausting, frustrating and draining.

• Experiential Avoidance. As human beings we do not like pain or discomfort, so over the ages we have learnt to avoid the things that we sense are a threat to us or are unsafe. Sometimes we overestimate the risk of those 'feelings and thoughts' and sometimes we respond in unhelpful ways, like avoiding more of life than we probably should.

Fascination Coaching - our aims

Empowerment

Connection

Resilience

We empower children and their families to take ownership of their education, fostering a sense of responsibility, self-motivation and a renewed interest in their future and its possibilities.

We empower schools to better understand, prevent and respond to avoidance. We also empower schools to develop their skills in fostering trust-based relational working and to recognise the benefits of doing so.

We look to strengthen the connections between children, schools, and families, allowing a more supportive network for success. We all need to recognise that relationships and trust are a big part of moving our children through the powerful habit of avoidance and towards a more valuable future.

• We support schools, families and pupils to work more effectively together to improve attendance and school engagement.

• We achieve this through promoting a greater understanding of avoidance, how to prevent it, how to recognise it and how to respond more effectively to it.

• We support schools and families by safely exploring what gets in the way and through the delivery of hopeful, optimistic, skills and values-based coaching.

We seek to cultivate resilience in pupils, equipping them with the skills to overcome challenges, both in school and in all aspects of their lives. We support children in moving towards what is important to them - their education and their future.