Activists' Community

Hi there,
I am looking for suggestions about people's experiences or literature applying NVR in schools. I have been doing training with local schools providing a brief introduction of NVR, so the schools are able to support the work I do with parents.
There is a particular school that works with children with disability interested in incorporating NVR in the whole school, but I feel my clinical work with individual cases, and the parenting program is not enough to support the school in this.
I would be grateful if members have further ideas about what way should I take, suggestions, literature (apart of the New Authority Book), or experiences that might be helpful to bear in mind to incorporate NVR in institutions.

Hi Particia

My name is Tal maimon and I'm a member of the New authority Center team in Israel. My major experience focus on applying the new authority guidelines in schools.
First, I want to say from our past experience, that the mission of applying the New Authority concept in schools is a very challenging one. In many cases the educational staff becomes very defensive when it come down to making changes in the way of thinking and more than that making changes in the way of acting. But as always in life overcoming challenges is one of the most satisfying feelings you can have at the end of the day…!
There are two main ways to assimilate the N.A and N.V.R in schools:
1. Hold lectures and workshops for the staff
2. Hold lectures and workshops for the staff and work parallel with the management team to help them implementing the NA and NVR and to set policy by using the New Authority concept.
The second option is more effective because you get the chance to work with the decision makers and processing the N.A and N.V.R with them before you present it to the educational staff. Usually it helps to overcome resistances.
After you define the way you work with school I will recommend to present N.A.& NVR following by these steps:

1. Introduction of the New Authority concept: first we characterize the guidelines of the authority that was acceptable in the past and then the Permissive ideology (that led to high levels of violence, dropping out, and low self-esteem). Then we present the N.A guidelines while emphasizing the Social legitimacy that it has.
2. Tools for class management – In this workshop we present tools for managing the class by adopting pro-active actions instead of re-active action (for example the 'bookmark'). We talk about preventing escalations and dealing with students' misbehavior while the teacher is teaching. The workshop is done in a regular school classroom and helps to gain support from the teachers who see the NVR trainer at the same position that they are on a daily bases. i.e. The NVR trainer is the teacher and the schools' teachers are the student (and believe me they behave like students.. :-)
3. New Authority tools for schools – In this workshop we present the N.V.R basic guidelines and then we practice the Sit-In version that we adopted to schools settings) by doing simulation and talk about them afterword. You can also combine explanations about Reparation acts in that lecture as well.
4. Relationship between teachers and parents – In this workshop we usually present tools for recruiting parents to join the educational staff for action against behavioral problems. We are working on ways that teacher can conduct a productive meeting with parents.
5. Relationship between teachers and teachers - In this workshop we usually present tools for teachers to recruiting other teachers to join together and react against behavioral problems together.
I hope that these guidelines will help you in your important work and I'm also attaching to all forum members a presentation by Idan Amiel about school work (It was introduced in a conference arranged by isi in Zurich). In February 15th I will also present our NVR school work at a conference in Netherlands. We will give more details soon.
Don't hesitate also to contact me by email: Tal_maimon@hotmail.com

Best regards
Tal

And one more thing, I will soon add an article (written by Idan amiel and I) under the "Resources" section. I hope you will find it relevant for you.

Hello Tal,
how are you? It was nice to meet you in Dordrecht last february and to have dinner with you and the whole team!
I wonder wheather your article about NVR and schools, that you mentioned here, is finished yet.
I could not find it in the 'resources'-section of the website, but maybe you can email it: e.wiebenga@lorentzhuis.nl
I am very interested to read it!
Kind regards, Eliane Wiebenga

Hi Eliane,

It's great to hear from you.
We had great time in Dordrecht! You and the other training participants were big part of that.
About the article - We will attach the article in the next N.A.N.I.​ newsleter which will be publish next month.
I will send it to you personally when it will be ready :-)

Best regards,
Tal