For greater than 25 years, we now have been coaching professionals in the usage of the Story Stem Evaluation Profile (SSAP), a strong and nuanced instrument designed to assist us perceive the interior worlds of kids aged 4 to 10 years outdated.
At its coronary heart, it’s a play-based, narrative evaluation the place youngsters are invited to reply to a sequence of story beginnings or conflicts utilizing small figures, animals and props. By their storytelling, we are able to acquire wealthy insights into their attachment representations and relational expectations.
An instance of a narrative stem is one the place a toddler unintentionally knocks over a saucepan whereas their mum is making dinner and finally ends up burning their hand. We observe what occurs reveals and says subsequent—does the dad or mum are inclined to the kid’s harm? Are they comforted or dismissed? Is there an escalation within the scenario, or does the dad or mum keep away from addressing it?
What makes SSAP so distinctive, and enduring is that via play, it is ready to mix scientific depth and theoretical rigour. It’s one of many solely instruments out there for this age group youngsters typically discover gratifying, while for the clinician, it presents a multidimensional view of a kid’s strengths, challenges, defences, and underlying wants.
“By their storytelling, we are able to acquire wealthy insights into their attachment representations and relational expectations.”
The SSAP was initially developed at Nice Ormond Avenue Hospital within the context of working with maltreated youngsters concerned in courtroom proceedings. The concept emerged organically from giving youngsters the beginnings of tales which they have been then invited to finish. This shaped the muse of what would later develop into a 13-story battery. Initially, the SSAP was used primarily as a psychotherapeutic instrument. As a younger educational, I selected to focus my PhD on the SSAP and helped refine the coding system, show its psychometric properties, and, above all, present its worth in capturing a toddler’s inside world. We started utilizing the instrument in analysis with adopted youngsters and shortly recognised its potential, which led to us beginning to ship coaching in its use within the early 2000s.
We have now printed many papers on the SSAP, significantly in looked-after (fostered) and adopted youngsters. Our findings recommend it’s significantly delicate to the results of early adversity, illuminating each overt and defensive patterns, serving to to establish inside working fashions that will not be instantly observable both in a toddler’s behaviour or in observations from adults.
Through the years, we’ve skilled lots of of individuals: scientific psychologists, little one psychotherapists, instructional psychologists, play therapists, social staff and lecturers. It’s being utilized in numerous settings together with adoption and fostering companies, looked-after youngsters’s groups, CAMHS, scientific and authorized settings, in addition to educational and repair analysis contexts.
We use the SSAP as a part of a broader evaluation framework inside an unbiased fostering company. Every little one completes the SSAP with a scientific psychologist, that are checked out throughout a battery of different measures. The SSAP is then transcribed, coded, and included right into a written report, which is then shared with social staff and households in each foster and residential care settings. The findings contribute to tailor-made suggestions that assist the kid’s relational and emotional wants.
The SSAP is recognised within the NICE tips and underpinned by a sturdy and rising physique of analysis, which has proven its reliability and scientific utility throughout various contexts. Whether or not in therapeutic work or courtroom stories, it presents one thing distinctive, a window into a toddler’s inside world that may in any other case stay unstated.
“The SSAP is recognised within the NICE tips and underpinned by a sturdy and rising physique of analysis, which has proven its reliability and scientific utility throughout various contexts.”
Our coaching programme runs over 4 days and examines the idea and apply of the instrument, together with its roots in attachment principle. We train individuals learn how to ship the story stems, code youngsters’s responses, after which specializing in scientific interpretation, evaluation, and reporting. It’s not only a technical course of, however a deeply reflective one, which leads individuals to develop into accredited.
I work with a Social Employee who was skilled on the SSAP over a decade in the past and just lately advised me “This coaching has modified the best way I perceive the kids I work with. I really feel like I’ve been given a key to make sense of their interior world, while additionally utilizing my very own scientific instinct.” I typically hear variations of this from individuals we’ve skilled. Folks depart feeling higher outfitted and extra assured of their assessments and suggestions.
What strikes me most, in any case these years, is how the SSAP continues to evolve as professionals who use it hold discovering new methods to use it. I’ve seen it utilized in service evaluations, complicated courtroom assessments, therapeutic planning, and reflective supervision. Right this moment, the SSAP shouldn’t be solely broadly used throughout the UK but in addition internationally, with variations translated into a number of languages. What I proceed to like concerning the SSAP is that it’s rooted in storytelling, a pure, non-threatening medium for kids, the place there aren’t any proper or improper solutions.
In the event you’re interested by coaching, in studying extra about how the SSAP works or the way it may assist your personal apply, I’d be glad to speak. There’s at all times extra to find out about within the tales youngsters inform. Be part of our subsequent SSAP coaching beginning on 29 September – discover out extra right here.
We additionally supply SSAP as a bespoke coaching, tailor-made to fulfill the coaching wants of groups and organisations throughout a spread of sectors. Enquire about commissioning SSAP on your group right here.
