Understanding and Supporting Young People who Self Injure in Social Care Settings

Abstract

this article provides a brief discussion on the issue of young people who self injure in social care settings. The discussion identifies this issue to be extremely challenging for social care workers caring for clients presenting with self injurious behaviour. The article focuses on providing some key definitions of self injury, identifies some key concepts in helping professionals understand the functions and reasons for self injurious behaviour and finally suggests some practical guidelines for social care workers in responding to young people in their care who harm themselves. The underlying ethos of these guidelines being the importance of using a listening, practical and supportive approach in attempting to understand self injury and care for young people who engage in self injurious behaviour. Introduction The issue of self injury is one that has moved more centrally into the public eye within the last decade with increased media focus on celebrities such as Princess Diana, Amy Winehouse and actress Christina Ricci who have all admitted to intentionally harming themselves (Best, 2006). Often due to a lack of knowledge of the issue, television, radio, magazines and newspapers portray people who self injure as ‘freaks’ (Levenkron, 1998). This may be attributed to the lack of real understanding of the behaviour being presented. My interest in the topic of young people in residential care and self injury arose some years when I was, for the first time in my career, faced with the challenge of managing incidents of self injury being displayed by a young person in my care. With over fifteen year’s experience of working with young people, I would undoubtedly identify managing these incidents as the most challenging aspect of my social care career to date. From liaising with some colleagues in the social care field, it seemed they too were facing the challenging issues of managing incidents of young people self injuring and vocalised their struggles in supporting and meeting the needs of the young people in their care during these episodes. The immediate issues for social care staff in working with young people who present with self injurious behaviour seemed to centre on a lack of understanding of the behaviour and also a need for guidance in supporting young people who self injure. This brief article provides an overview of the definitions, functions and causes of self injurious behaviour and also provides some guidelines for workers supporting young people in their care who may be engaging in self injurious behaviour