Digging Deep
A Practical Program to Encourage Young People to Name, Own and Deal with their Emotions
Julie Matthews
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Digging Deep is a practical program to help young people, particularly boys aged 8 to 16, who struggle with their feelings and words. It is designed to assist teachers in helping students talk about their emotions.
Through the program, students are encouraged to communicate openly using the safety and anonymity of a central character.
The comprehensive Teacher's Manual provides teachers with curriculum and program ideas and includes 21 discussion starter cards with suggestions for classroom use. It also contains a range of 'feeling' words for photocopying and classroom use, and a list of further reading on the subject of young people learning to deal with their emotions.
The Activities Book contains 50 reinforcement and motivational cards, and 50 sets of photocopiable activity cards. Flexible and practical, Digging Deep is suitable for any curriculum area, and provides ideal support for pastoral care and welfare programs.
Aims:
Digging Deep is designed to assist teachers to help students develop skills in recognising, naming and dealing with their feelings.
Target group:
Digging Deep is a practical program to help children and young people, particularly boys aged 8 to 16, who struggle with their feelings and words. It is primarily designed for boys, but can be adapted for girls.
Program content and components:
Through the six activity levels of the program, students are encouraged to communicate openly using the safety and anonymity of a central character. This character, a young white male named Harwood, is presented as a typical adolescent growing into adulthood through real life situations. Harwood’s language, emotional expression and the body language that conveys his emotions are used as prompts for discussion and reflection. These are as follows:
- Harwood Announces - A total of 50 announcements he makes at home, school, and in his peer group (i.e. ‘Everybody picks on me’, ‘Piss off’, ‘You’re just a girl’)
- Harwood Communicates - A follow-up to the announcement. Harwood says more about the problem
- Harwood Discovers - Harwood begins to dig deep and discover new feelings and meanings
- Harwood Challenges - Harwood is challenged to feel his emotions, to form an opinion about them and to share this with others
- Harwood Struggles - Harwood struggles to express his feelings during various issues
- Harwood Endeavours - Harwood tries to make his announcements more reflective of his feelings
PROGRAM EVALUATION
Identified theoretical framework:
Digging Deep is based on the concept that young people may have difficulty expressing their feelings as they lack the opportunity for positive modelling, there are social pressures to hide their feelings and they don’t have sufficient vocabulary, skills or confidence to express their feelings. This is often particularly true for boys. The Digging Deep program helps unlock their fears through empowering them to dig deep within, teaching skills and modelling emotional expression. The program also aims to help young people see the connection between emotions and behaviours.
Evidence of effectiveness:
(according to criteria developed by CASEL for rating program effectiveness)
No evaluations were submitted that met the inclusion criteria.
PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION
Program structure:
There is no set structure to this program; rather, it is flexible and adaptable to any curriculum area, and the Teacher’s Manual provides numerous examples of curriculum planning and use.
Staff professional learning (PL):
According to the manual, a critical requirement for the effective and ethical use of the ‘Digging Deep’ program is a teacher’s skilfulness in creating a ‘safe’ environment in which students can explore their own and others’ responses to the activities. The program activities will place considerable demands on teachers’ interpersonal skills and understanding of their learners, and is not something that should be attempted lightly. It is a program that may require co-facilitation by a member of the welfare team.
Program costs:
The comprehensive Teacher’s Manual provides teachers with curriculum and program ideas and includes 21 discussion starter cards with suggestions for classroom use. It also contains a range of ‘feeling’ words for photocopying and classroom use, and a list of further reading on the subject of children and young people learning to deal with their emotions.
The Activities Book contains 50 reinforcement and motivational cards, and 50 sets of activity cards that may be photocopied.
The Set containing both Teachers Manual and Activities Book
About the author:
Julie Matthews is a primary and secondary teacher with extensive experience. She created Come along Kids Counselling for young people and their families and maintains a thriving practice. Julie is also the author of Hear What They Say, a guide for parents to ‘hear’ between the lines. She consults with teachers and parents to help young people express their emotions and behaviours.