Feeling safe in school∗

Invited lecture to the Smith College School of Social Work, June 11, 2001

Research support by the Child and Family Center, Menninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas

Abstract

This paper advances the hypothesis that for a child to feel safe and to learn at school certain psychological conditions must be met. These conditions are described using concepts derived from psychoanalytic research and include; a background of SAFETY and a feeling of WELL BEING derived from a healthy ego with perceptual skills appropriate to the task, a HOLDING environment of adults who can respond appropriately to the child's developmental needs, an environment that provides CONTAINMENT and helps children process negativity in relationships, processes that help children regulate affect, value relationships, and leam to mentalise, in a SECURE ATTACHMENT experience, and finally, supports that encourage children to function as responsible members of a community organized as an OPEN SOCIAL SYSTEM.

Notes

Invited lecture to the Smith College School of Social Work, June 11, 2001

Research support by the Child and Family Center, Menninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas

Co‐director of the Peaceful Schools Project, Child & Family Center, The Menninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Wichita, Kansas and faculty Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Consultant to the FBI Critical Incident Response Group on School Shootings.

Director, Child and Family Center and Clinical Protocols and Outcomes Center, The Menninger Clinic, Topeka, Kansas, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis, UCL, London, England, Director of Research, The Anna Freud Centre, London, England.

President, Community Services Institute, Springfield, Massachusetts.