SOLutions In Schools
The SOLIS Study
Using solution focused approaches to improve communication, school culture, and helping staff to ‘do more with less’
Welcome to the SOLutions In Schools (SOLIS) study
SOLIS is an 18-month study co-designing and piloting a whole-school solution focused programme with school staff, students, and parents/carers.
The SOLIS study aims to investigate whether we can support school staff to have better conversations with students, colleagues, and parents/carers, using a promising approach called Solution Talk. Solution Talk (or Solution Focused Approaches) involve positive, forward-looking conversations that help children, young people, families, and school staff focus on what matters to them. They don’t talk about problems or what is going wrong. They help people to think about what they want to be different or better, by exploring their skills, what they’re already doing that’s working well, and celebrating success.
Working with an all-through (ages 4-18) school in East London, we are training school staff in Solution Talk for use in their everyday conversations with students, colleagues, and parents/carers. We will investigate how students and staff experience solution focused conversations and whether it has a potential impact on mental wellbeing, behaviour and school culture.
The project is funded by the Barts charity and is being led by Professor Rose McCabe and Dr Fiona Robinson at City St. George’s, University of London.
