Positive Options Annual Report for John Munroe Hospital Group

The John Munroe Hospital Group is recognised as a training centre and internally trains up all its clinical staff in the Management of Acutal and Potential Agression (MAPA).

Click here for public statement from Positive Options.

Core aims and values of the Management of Actual or Potential Aggression (MAPA®) approach.

Aims

To establish emotional contact and bonding between the carer and the service user through the use of verbal and physical interaction.

To allow the expression of anger, frustration, anxiety and emotional turmoil in a safe and controlled environment.

To enable carers to explore issues of threat and confrontation with the service user.

To enable service users to recognise their feelings and to learn to express themselves in meaningful and constructive ways.

To help service users identify and adopt alternative coping strategies.

To help service users and carers alike to develop a more meaningful and trusting relationship.

Values

Everyone is a unique individual.

Resolving aggression and violence cannot be achieved unless the service user's underlying needs are met.

The focus of the relationship between the service user and the carer should be an alliance rather than one of 'winners' and 'losers'. Problems (and therefore solutions) exist within a reciprocal relationship. Resolution can only be achieved through mutual change.

All feelings are valid and must not be dismissed. Carers should help service users to validate their feelings, whilst at the same time actively directing the service users to learn positive alternative and socially valid expressions of emotion.

Service users need to learn to care for themselves. Low self-esteem often leads to physical and psychological self-neglect. Service users need to learn to value themselves and learn to work for themselves rather than against themselves.

Service users need to learn to care for others and understand that relationships can be positive and rewarding.

The carer's primary goal should be one of interaction, bonding, trust, and the development of positive relationships. The notion of supportive interaction suggests that carers act as mediators between the service user's violence and poor coping strategies, and the goal of personal growth and self-management.

Interaction can help prevent the service user from using difficult behaviour to avoid relationships and achieve emotional detachment.

The service user's behaviours are not viewed as 'good' or 'bad' but as 'helpful' or 'non-helpful' in terms of personal growth, access to opportunity, and self-management. The service user responds in a manner that makes sense at the time and therefore cannot adapt or change until new alternatives have been learned.

Below is the ATC report with our current accreditation.

Click here for more information on Positive Options