The role of Your Choice Practitioners
Your Choice ‘coaches’ are youth practitioners who deliver the programme to children and young people. Coaches receive five days of training by a Your Choice Trainer in their Local Authority. The training focuses on how to use cognitive behavioural tools and techniques to support the young person to better understand themselves, equip them with coping strategies, and empower them to disrupt unwanted patterns of behaviour. These tools and techniques can be adapted to incorporate approaches to speech, language and communication needs, autism spectrum disorder, and learning disabilities. During the programme, practitioners can also make use of a behavioural activation fund that enables the resourcing of relevant activities, such as gym memberships. Delivery is overseen by a clinical lead, a clinician with expertise and experience in the delivery of CBT, who will lead monthly supervisions.
Our Practice Lead, Dr Karla Goodman, makes the case for the Your Choice programme in her MJ commentary piece which you can read here. You can read more about the Your Choice programme by clicking on the below button.
To evaluate the potential effectiveness of Your Choice to reduce those young people at risk of violence the programme is being evaluated by a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The evaluation of the Your Choice programme is referred to as the London Young People Study. You can read more about the research study here and our evaluation partners here.
Your Choice Resources for Practitioners
The LIIA team has developed specific resources for practitioners delivering the Your Choice programme across London.
- What is Your Choice? : this animated video explains what the Your Choice programme is. This video should only be shown to young people who are on the Your Choice programme and their parents/carers.
- Introduction to Your Choice: this leaflet is intended for parents/carers. It explains what the programme is and includes testimonials from other parents and young people.
- The Your Choice Resource Pack: brings together a collection of exercises for practitioners to weave into their Your Choice practice with young people. Practitioners are encouraged to draw on their engagement skills to be creative with how these exercises are adapted to the young people they work with. The resource pack provides examples of how the exercises can be applied and adapted.
- The Goal Tracker: identifying goals young people want to work towards is a key part of the Your Choice programme. To track progress young people can use this form. There is also a function for how to do this on the LYPS Portal.
