What Are Nurture Group Staffs’ Experiences of How Their Resilience Is Supported in School?

Nurture Groups are described by Nurtureuk as a school based, teacher-led psychosocial short term, focused intervention for children who have been identified as having social and emotional needs that are creating a barrier to their learning. Nurture Groups are staffed by two adults and offer children a safe and highly structured setting to support them to learn and practice their social, emotional and behavioural skills and resilience; in order to enhance their capacity to learn, develop and maintain relationships. Many studies that explore teacher stress have focused on what makes them stressful, with children’s behaviour often being cited as a challenge to teachers’ retention and resilience. As Nurture Groups focus on supporting children’s social, emotional and mental health, which includes developing their resilience, the resilience of Nurture Group staff was considered a relevant focus of research.
The purpose of this research was to explore the factors that support Nurture Groups staffs’ resilience within school and the role that schools and Educational Psychologists could play. Data was collected from eight Nurture Group practitioners in one Outer London Borough using semi-structured interviews and analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. The findings reveal that interactions between personal and environmental factor exist and help to support Nurture Group staffs’ resilience in school. Four Superordinate themes were identified which focused on understanding resilience as a concept, identity of school staff, school structure and navigating the challenges of Nurture Group. Findings from the current research are compared with previous research and theory-based literature while practical implications and directions for future research are also discussed. Recommendations for schools and Educational Psychologists are provided to develop and sustain Nurture Group staffs’ resilience, at an individual, school and community level.