ABSTRACT
‘Discovering who I am’ was originally developed as a group resource for a deaf child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) inpatient unit for 7 to 17 year olds with a variety of mental health and emotional behavioural difficulties. As Deaf CAMHS is a relatively recently developing area, there is not as much research or as many resources available compared to other areas. Therefore, clinicians in this setting regularly create resources. The clinicians wanted to develop a therapeutic group that all the young people could attend despite differences in age, level of ability, difficulties or experience. This would be a group that young people could come to for one session or the whole set of sessions, e.g. a half term, and gain something from attending. However, young people learned the most from attending all of the group sessions. We noticed that the common areas of difficulty that the vast majority of young people were experiencing were in the social emotional skills/wellbeing area: self-esteem, emotional regulation and Deaf identity. It was from these common difficulties that the structure of the group was born: mindfulness, identity, self-esteem and relaxation. Mindfulness and relaxation were used as strategies for coping with emotions i.e. emotional regulation and identity and self-esteem as focuses. Secondary skills or areas that would be focused on through the approach to facilitation included social skills, problem solving, sharing, thinking of others, understanding another person’s perspective, how to maintain positive relationships and experiencing these and the general benefits from being in a therapeutic group with others. Additional spaces and groups within the unit focused specifically on other therapeutic areas, but a gap had been identified at the time.
