A letter of introduction from Shane 

Dear parents, friends and colleagues,

I have found emotion coaching to be both personally and professionally empowering, for context I am speaking from the prospective of both a service user and a professional. I have been diagnosed with both Asperger's syndrome and ADHD

My first experience with EHCAP and Emotion Coaching started in 2015. What I found empowering about the training was the way in which it allowed me as an autistic individual to develop a concrete concept and understanding of the function and purpose of emotions.

The idea of there being 7 core emotions and those emotions serving functions in combinations with there being means of noticing and identifying them have been great assets to learn both personally and professionally Through the training I have developed the ability to recognise low level emotionality in both myself and in others as well as viable techniques to manage and mitigate the potential consequences of said emotions had they been allowed to go unobserved.

Additionally the hand map of the brain that is also taught in this training has become a vital tool I use on a regular basis to support people with whom I work to facilitate their understanding of the neuroscience of emotions and behaviours

I have found the learning I have gained from EHCAP to be easy to cascade in my professional experience as I have embedded the learning in successive professional contexts in which I have worked. The first of which being my work with the Somerset County Council Engagement and Participation team in which we used the learning gained from EHCAP to apply an emotionally aware underpinning to all our in house staff CPD and our young people engagement activities with the most prominent example being the Unstoppables Young People's Forum

Latterly, I have gone on to use the learning to influence work I have developed at university and in the school I now work at in London. 

In regards to the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) component of the learning I have found that I now posses greatly enhanced insights into the prevalence of ACEs. This awareness presents itself in a much more consided approach to the way I work with young people. Stories and accounts I would have likely overlooked in the past, I now take as potential indicators to flag for safeguarding. Additionally I am finding that people I share the ACE framework with are surprised by the prevalence of ACEs and find the framework a useful tool to help inform understanding and practice regarding adverse childhood Experiences

In summery both the learning regarding core emotions and Professor Dan Siegel's Hand Model of the brain have proved to be highly valuable neurology aware tools that I've found have good traction when employed with parents, practitioners and young people in equal measure leading to enhanced ability to communicate, share ideas and reduction in conflict and stress. The ACE framework also provides useful insight for practitioners into what currently is a very ill understood area of need.

Kind regards

Shane

Shane Dangar

Young People's Voice, EHCAP