Tooled Up Education

Autism Conference Talk: How to Support Ethnic Minority Families with Autistic Children

Join Reena Anand for an exploration of autism among minority ethnic groups. Reena shines a light on the relevance of cultural considerations, norms and expectations when supporting autistic children and young people across different racial and ethnic groups. We consider how to understand parental responses and how best to support families.

Autism Conference Talk: An Educators’ Guide to Autism and Gender Dysphoria

Join Dr Kate Cooper for a deep dive into the intersection of autism and gender dysphoria. Watch this webinar for an understanding of how challenges with communication, dealing with change, and identity can affect an autistic young person experiencing gender dysphoria. There are lots of practical tips for support: how to approach this with kindness and curiosity, and how to empower parents in helping their children.

Autism Conference Talk: Principles of Good Autism Practice in Schools

Watch this comprehensive summary of good educational practice for schools supporting autistic pupils with Professor Karen Guldberg. Many autistic children are excluded to some extent from learning at school – from official exclusions to unofficial ones such as reduced timetables. Professor Guldberg provides the eight principles of good autism practice in a way that can easily be applied to any educational setting.

An A-Z of Frequently Asked Parenting Questions and How Tooled Up Can Help

The Tooled Up library covers numerous different subjects relating to parenting and education. Our content ranges from articles and interviews about connecting with nature and children’s relationship with fire, to quizzes about clouds and James Bond. But there are some subjects that we are asked about very frequently. We want to make sure that you know exactly where to find the answers to all of these common questions. Hopefully this A-Z will help you to locate what you need in the library. Some of the topics on this list are relevant to children and young people of particular ages or developmental stages. Others are more universal. We could have included many more questions, but we wanted to give you a good snapshot of exactly what we can offer. Enjoy!

Researcher of the Month: Tanya Manchanda Discusses the Role of Friendship Interventions on the Mental Health Outcomes of Adolescents

Our Researcher of the Month, Tanya Manchanda, has recently published a review which assesses existing friendship interventions and their impacts on the mental health outcomes of adolescents aged 12–24 years. In this interview, Tanya considers what we know about these interventions, for both the teen who is trained and their friends and reveals that surprisingly few interventions which utilise authentic social groups have been studied, despite their potential for strong results. She talks us through some of the interventions that do exist and outlines key things that schools might like to consider when developing and implementing friendship interventions designed to improve teens’ mental health.

Treating Friends and Classmates Kindly (for Teens)

Relational aggression is an insidious type of bullying. Rather than causing physical harm, relational aggression is intended to hurt someone’s personal relationships or social standing. It can take on many different forms and can often be subtle and hard to recognise. In this exercise, we encourage you and your teen to consider different types of relational aggression and reflect on your family values when it comes to kindness and how to treat others.

Understanding Adoption: Perspectives of the Adoptee, Parent & Professional & Actionable Tips for Educational Settings with Alison Roy

Author of ‘A for Adoption’ and Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Alison Roy, joins us to explore the impact of adoption on an adoptee – child or young person, and how their traumatic histories can affect their relationships in different settings. This webinar provides a fuller understanding about the challenges facing adopted children and their families, and the professionals who support them. Alison highlights the importance of relationships and relationship-based interventions as a means of making sense of these experiences and creating educational environments where adopted young people can thrive.

Dr Weston Talks with Dr Danielle Paddock: ‘Feel Cute, Might Delete Later’ – Teens and Appearance-based Interactions on Social Media

In this interview, we talk to cyberpsychologist Dr Danielle Paddock about her fascinating examination of how teens converse with each other about appearance on social media. We know that appearance-related concerns are very high among teens in the UK. We also know that visual social media platform design encourages both image creation/sharing and interactions about these images. Dr Paddock chats about key themes that have emerged in her work, fruitful ways to talk to teens about this issue, and the positive impact of a brief school-based intervention about appearance-based interactions on young people’s body image.